A Lost Paradisc Early Reminiscences

:.,.i: I .;y I '

Keep Your Card in This Pocket

Books will be issued only on presentation of proper
library cards.

Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks- Borrowers finding books marked, de-
faced or mutilated ar expected to report same at:
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible for all imperfections discovered.

The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on this card.

Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of
notices.

Lost cards and change of residence must be re-
ported promptly.

Public Library

Kansas City, Mo.

D DDD1 H51355S 1

Lost Paradise

SAMUEL CHOTZINOFF

A Lost Paradise

EARLY REMINISCENCES

In life there is really no great or small thing.

All things are of equal 'value and of equal size.

OSCAR WILDE, De Profundis

ALFRED A. KNOPF
NEW YORK

L. C. catalog card member: 54-7202
Samuel Chotzinoff,

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, ING.

Copyright 1953, *PJT by SAMUEL CHOTXINOFF, 1934 by THE CURTIS
PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form 'without permission in 'writing from the pub-
lisher, except by a re t vie r wer r who may quote brief passages in a re t vie r w to
be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Published si?nultaneously in
Canada by JVLcClelland <& Ste<wart Limited. Manufactured in the United
States of America.

FIRST EDITION

A shorter version of the chapter entitled "Mr. Harris" appeared
originally in THE NEW YORKER, and a section of the chapter entitled
"The Fountain" appeared originally as "East Side Boyhood" in

HOLIDAY.

For ANNE and BLAIR

Contents

CHAPTER I The Healing Earth PAGE 3

II Mr. Harris 33

III Life on Stanton Street 57

IV The Fountain 80
V The Theater 93

VI Euterfe on Henry Street 109

VII Mr. Silver i Individualist 130

VIII "Then We Were Eight" 147

Vlll CONTENTS

IX Hannah 158

X Business Affairs 1 8 1

XI The Freedom Method 193

XII A Connecticut Interlude i 212

XIII A Connecticut Interlude 2 245

XIV Widening Horizons 278
XV A Paradise of the Rich 3 1 8

XVI Sergei 3 34

XVII Debut 344

Lost Paradise

CHAPTER ONE

Healing Earth

W

f THE

r HEN, through the proddings of that species of
vanity which makes some people believe that their lives have
had a special significance and are therefore worthy to be re-
corded, I undertook to write these memoirs, I was discon-
certed to discover that my family (and I, too, for that matter)
had kept no records. Neither births, deaths, nor marriages
had ever been inscribed in Bibles or other sacred books. I
should not have wondered at this, having been told as a child
that it is forbidden to deface God's utterance or the chronicles
and opinions of holy men. But I had hoped to find the infor-
mation I was seeking set down in journals, diaries, letters,
and on the flyleaves of profane books. I should have known
better; indeed, I did know better. For in so orthodox and so
poor a Jewish household as ours there were no journals,
diaries, or letters that survived their perusal, and no profane
books.

4 A LOST PARADISE

I cannot recall ever seeing legal documents of any sort
around the house except rny father's identification papers as a
Jew and a legal resident of our home town of Vitebsk, on the
Dvina River, in the "government" of Vitebsk. And I became
acutely aware of this sinister paper only because at alarmingly
frequent intervals it was held by the local police to be not in
order. Since no one ever tampered with this document, it was
difficult to understand how anything could ever be wrong with
it. The discovery of its irregularity always occurred in the
dead of night and was heralded by a great knocking on the
door, which aroused the entire family and even the neighbors.
While the rest of us hovered trembling with fear in the back-
ground, my father, looking fatalistically resigned in his long
underwear, would admit the two policemen (they always came
in pairs) and automatically and without inquiring into the
reason for their untimely visit produce his papers. And while
the two pretended to scrutinize the documents (the Russian
police in general never learned to read), my father would
dress himself with the celerity of an actor making a quick
change in a farce that was enjoying a long run. The three
would then depart for the station house, whither my mother,
her toilette taking longer than my father's, would follow vSoon
after, in her hand the two rubles she would by then have
borrowed from neighbors who had also been aroused by the
clamor. And having, after many lengthy formalities, paid the
fine for the alleged irregularities the identification papers re-
vealed to the cursory scrutiny of the sergeant at the desk, my
parents would return home and the family would resume their
interrupted rest.

Important family events were remembered and placed as
to time by the concurrence of noteworthy happenings in the
outside world. Thus it appeared that I came down with the
measles the day after the great fire broke out in the Gover-
nor's Mansion on the "other" side of the river. That, by
backward computation, would fix my age at the period of my

The Healing Earth 5

malady at around three. Similarly, I received my first haircut
deemed a solemn occasion in the life of a Jewish male
during the great drought which lasted a month, the reluctant
heavens finally succumbing to the pressure of a series of spe-
cial all-night prayers by the town's most pious Jews. Fires
were, perhaps, the greatest aid to memory, for there was
hardly a conflagration, great or small, that was not associated
with a birth, death, marriage, or family event of even minor
importance. Other outside happenings also served as memory
posts, some tragic and some tragicomic, such as the death of
the pampered young son of a close neighbor, who succumbed
after consuming four dozen oversized latkes (potato pan-
cakes) which his doting mother, unable to deny him, had
fried and served up to him. By a rare coincidence it was on
that very day that my great-aunt Shprinze ran away with a
"goy" and was never heard of again. And any reference to
the unhappy fate that overtook our neighbor's hedonistic
child brought with it a reminder of the shame to her family
caused by my great-aunt's elopement.

Owing to the absence of recorded data, the ages of the
members of our family remained approximations. We were
"about" so many years old, having been born "around" the
beginning, middle, or end of whatever year and month some
memorable external event had taken place. Along with wars,
pestilences, pogroms, the accession of tsars or their deaths,
either natural or by assassination at the hands of what my
father called "godless terrorists," the more important Jewish
holidays helped to identify and place in some sort of chrono-
logical order the high points of our family history. Some of
us were born on the eve of such holidays or even on the very
day. Such birthdays were the more easily catalogued and
remembered. My mother herself had been born so close to the
first day of Passover (and in the year of the Great Plague, at
that!) that my grandmother, overanxious to put her house in
a kosher state for the holidays, left her lying-in bed prema-

6 A LOST PARADISE

turely and set about scouring and dusting, and in consequence
suffered poor health for the rest of her life,

My mother "thought" that her marriage to my father might
have taken place "around" the time of the pogrom in Su~
walki. And on investigation many years later I found that
tragic event to have taken place in 1888. And since there was
a recollection that I was born one year later, 1889 was clearly
the year of my birth. My mother had been married twice
before (this I also learned many years later), and both mar-
riages had ended in divorce. The divorces, my mother later
assured me, were obtained by her on the grounds of inebriety,
certainly a remarkable coincidence, it seemed to me, in the
failings of two husbands otherwise different in temperament
and character. Habitual drunkenness served not uncommonly
as grounds for divorce, though it did not have the major
importance of sterility in women, failure to produce a male
child, or impotence in men. Still, while the charge of drunken-
ness may have been acceptable to the rabbi who sat in judg-
ment, I find it hard to believe that my mother would have
resorted to the extremity of divorce for so human a failing.
Furthermore, she had borne each of her husbands a girl, and
the welfare of the two little children was a consideration that
must have counted against the solution of her domestic prob-
lems by divorce. My mother was strong-minded and strong-
willed, ready and even eager to adjust herself to the frailties
of those she loved. Where her emotions were involved she
could summon endless reserves of patience and endurance. It
is highly probable, therefore, that her emotions were not in-
volved in her first two marriages. And rather than live out
her days unloving, to her a more depressing condition than
unloved, she would suffer the obloquy of a twice-divorced
woman in order to retain at least the hope of some future
emotional fulfillment.

Whatever her motives, her determination to keep herself
free at all costs for some problematic destiny was highly un-

The Healing Earth 7

conventional for those times. To give it respectability she
required the sympathy and approval of some powerfully
placed and greatly respected person in the town and neighbor-
hood. She did not have far to look. Her own father, Reb
Shnayer Tresskanov, was the most idolized, the most re-
spected savant in Vitebsk and within a radius of at least
seventy miles. What was more, my mother was his favorite
among his six children. She had always known it, though he
had shown to the world the conventional preference of Jewish
fathers for their male offspring. She understood him, not
perhaps rationally, but instinctively, and she loved him de-
votedly, even while she wondered at the extremes of piety
and generosity his mystical nature drove him to. Abhorring
the very idea of favoritism, he was secretly indulgent to my
mother and prone to overlook lapses of propriety in her that
he would not tolerate in his other daughters. Many years ago,
when the crinoline came into fashion among goyirn, it was
tacitly assumed that it was no proper garment for well-
brought-up Jewish girls and women. Walking one day in the
public park, my grandfather came face to face with his eldest
daughter, Rivkeh, then a pretty girl of eighteen. He could
hardly believe his eyes! Rivke was clad in the billowing, ir-
religious, goyish abomination, the crinoline! My grandfather
seized his daughter by her wrists and commanded her to re-
move the offending garment instantly. Adamant against her
plea to be permitted to return home, there to discard her dress
and never to wear it again, he insisted on its immediate re-
moval in plain view of the crowd that had collected around
them. The crinoline finally fell to the ground, and the sobbing
Rivke, stepping out of it clad only in a petticoat, made her
escape. My mother contended that had she herself been the
culprit, her father would have spared her the humiliation he
had not hesitated to inflict on her sister.

In her divorce proceedings my mother undoubtedly had the
support of her father. The rabbi who tried both cases must

8 A LOST PARADISE

have taken into account Reb Shnayer's tacit acquiescence, for
he curtailed the proceedings, ruling quickly in my mother's
favor and giving her the custody of her two little girls. With
them she discreetly retired to her father's small farm in the
near-by village of Serotchaya, there to abide unnoticed until
the sensation of her second marital fiasco had died down to the
point where marriage again might become a probability. She
was still fairly young and personable, and the numerous
matchmakers in the town and surrounding country would be
sure to find, after a decent interval, some hard-pressed
widower whose need of a mother for his children would out-
weigh my mother's unfavorable marital record. Nor would
so perplexed a widower be inclined to overlook the modest
marriage portion my grandfather was prepared to contribute.
But, above all, the matchmakers relied on the potency of my
grandfather's fame and reputation. The prospect of a relation-
ship with so saintly a personage was to be the real bait.

For two years my mother lived quietly in Serotchaya*
working in the fields, milking the cow, feeding the chickens,
and making herself generally useful about the place and to
her mother. Then one day a shadchen (marriage broker) ap-
peared with the news that the ideal widower had by the
greatest good fortune become available. The prospect was a
youngish man, only some seven years older than my mother,
handsome, sober, pious, and by profession a teacher of lie-
brew to the young. Ambition, too, he had. For he hoped some
day to become a minor rabbi and engage in schkitte (ritual
slaughter), circumcision, and the performance of marriages.
His wife had died the previous year in giving birth to a girl,
their sixth child. And now, the proper interval of mourning
having been observed, the widower stood in need & a mother
for his children and a presentable mate for himself.

There was a flaw, however, in the picture the shadchen
drew, which my grandfather quickly brought to light, one
which in any case could not have long remained concealed. It

The Healing Earth 9

transpired that the prospective bridegroom's father was a
tailor, than which no profession stood lower in general esti-
mation. On the face of it an alliance between a tailor and a
rabbi so renowned as my grandfather would be out of the
question. But against this apparently insurmountable obstacle
the shadchen opposed the damaging circumstance of my
mother's divorces, to say nothing of her two little girls, who
would be a serious addition to the widower's already large
family. A woman so vulnerable, he argued, was in no position
to choose. The existence of the tailor, however, while de-
plorable, was not generally known. Most fortunately, the
shadchen pointed out, the widower and his father lived in Ula,
a town several hours distant from Vitebsk. Now, it is one
thing to be allied to a tailor in one's own town, and quite
another to have the disreputable relation residing, obscurely,
at a great distance away. On the other hand, the widower,
residing in Ula, could not have heard much, if anything, about
my mother in faraway Vitebsk. The shadchen now confessed
that he had deemed it prudent to acquaint Mayshe Baer
Chatianov, the widower, with only one of my mother's mar-
riages. Nor had he mentioned the existence of the two little
girls. In a kind of triumphant peroration the shadchen prophe-
sied that some time after the proposed marriage had settled
into happy domesticity my mother could safely disclose the
existence of her children. In any case her husband would then
be faced with &fait accompli.

Distasteful as this deception must have appeared to my
mother and her father, they were forced to accept the
shadchen' s dictum that it would be flying in the face of prov-
idence to jeopardize, by refusing to postpone the truth for a
little time, a match so suitable from every point of view. The
shadchen had worked everything out in advance. And having
succeeded in overcoming all objections and scruples that were
advanced, he proceeded to outline his plan. My grandfather
and his daughter were to journey to Ula and pay a formal

IO ' A LOST PARADISE

call on the tailor. This would be recognized as a deliberate
piece of condescension and would so gratify the latter as to
dissipate any idea of the proposed alliance being disadvan-
tageous to his son, in the event that rumor and gossip relating
to my mother had already reached Ula. To keep the tailor
forever at a safe remove, the widower and his six children
were to be invited to take up residence with the new bride in
Vitebsk in a house that my grandfather would purchase for
the couple, himself to make a substantial down payment and
the groom to undertake the payment of the rest of the sum in
monthly installments.

The shadchen's plan was approved and duly carried out. My
grandfather was no snob, though he was not above the preju-
dices of his time. He carried off his visit to the elder Chatianov
with quiet dignity and a naturalness that both impressed the
tailor and put him at his ease. Nor did the visitor attempt to
evade the subject of his host's embarrassing profession. On
the contrary, he introduced the subject early at their first
meeting and expressed a wish to examine the shop and see for
himself the place from which the elite of Ula were outfitted.
My father and mother were ceremoniously introduced to each
other. The shadchen, being present and acting as chaperon
and manager, reported the meeting to my grandfather as
having been successful, even more than he had hoped. The
shadchen was a great believer in a man and a woman getting
a glimpse of each other before the marriage ceremony. Such a
meeting, if immediately rewarding, might at once lay the
foundation for a happy future; and if momentarily disappoint-
ing, it at least gave the couple time to adjust their former hopes
to the reality they would face on their wedding day and after.
My father was sufficiently pleased with the face and figure of
my mother to admit as much later to the shadchen, and to
confide, in a burst of confidence, that he had had his first
glimpse of his late wife when he lifted her veil at the marriage
ceremony. He was then only seventeen and the bride was

The Healing Earth 1 1

ten years his senior. The shadchen surmised that there must
have been other elements of disparity which my father quite
properly refrained from mentioning. As for my mother, the
shadchen reported that she had been much taken with my
father. Through long experience in such delicate matters the
shadchen prided himself on an ability to penetrate the craftiest
dissimulation. He was now ready to swear on the heads of
his children that my mother loved the widower at first sight.
The wedding followed duly. The house in Vitebsk was
purchased and furnished by my grandfather and the family
moved in. My father's six children ranged in age from the
year-old Sarah to Albert, a youth of about nineteen or twenty.
In between were Hodde (renamed Gertie in America), seven-
teen, Leyke (Lea), fourteen, Zalman (Solomon), eight, and
Lcbbe (Louis), five. My mother at once gave herself up
fully to the duties of a wife and mother. Her energy and
vitality were inexhaustible and she marketed, cooked, washed,
swept, and mended from earliest morning to bedtime. With
the assistance of my grandfather my father established a
cheder (Hebrew school) in an untenanted house at the end of
town. The pupils were few at first, but grew in number as
my father began to be talked of as a strict disciplinarian and a
specialist in the treatment of pampered or backward children.
My grandfather contributed to the success of the cheder by
not neglecting to put in a word about the solidity and extent
of the learning of his new son-in-law where it would be most
effective, with fathers of prospective pupils. Albert and
Zalman, the two elder boys, were apprenticed to a carpenter.
They received no pay, but were guaranteed their midday
dinner. Lebbe joined the pupils in his father's cheder. Hodde
being of a marriageable age, my father considered it best for
her not to engage in remunerative labor, but to stay at home
to await her destined suitor, she in the meantime assuming
(voluntarily, as he stipulated) some of the lighter chores of
the household; nor was the younger Leyke to overtax her

12 A LOST PARADISE

strength in helping out at home. He was a just man, he be-
lieved, but he wished my mother to know that he hadn't
married her in order to make slaves of his children.

He was in general pleased with the way things had worked
out for him. He had been happy to leave his native town for a
large city far away where his father's profession (he respected
his father) was more a rumor than a fact. His alliance with
the daughter of a famous and well-loved rabbi afforded him
constant self-satisfaction, while the comeliness, comparative
youth, industry, and common sense of his new wife were all
that a man with six children could reasonably ask for. He
could not, however, forget that she had been, after all, a
divorced woman and consequently lacked the respectability of
a widow. And in moments of domestic friction he did not
scruple to remind her that she had had the better of the bargain
in their marriage. He was a born conformist and he adopted
without question all current traditions and prejudices. His
credo included a mistrust of all stepmothers, which itself was
a corollary to the self-evident proposition that one could love
only one's own flesh and blood. And since no exceptions were
to be admitted, he was convinced that even with the best in-
tentions my mother could not but resent her stepchildren and
treat them accordingly. His own observation failed to bear
out his suspicions, however, and his children did not complain
of ill-treatment. Indeed, my mother took the greatest care to
give them no cause for complaint. While she could not pre-
tend to herself that she found her stepchildren sympathetic,
she was not the person to fail to carry out an obligation she
had voluntarily assumed. She could not even blame them for
being, as she thought, insensitive. What better could one
expect in the offspring of the oldish, ignorant female who had
been their mother! (My mother had taken pains to inform
herself on everything that pertained to the looks and disposi-
tion of her predecessor.) But she had an even stronger reason
than duty to play the mother to her stepchildren. She was

The Healing Earth 1 3

preparing the ground for the appearance and acceptance of
her own two children, who were stowed away on her father's
farm. She had, in fact, little time to lose, for the chances of the
discovery of her secret grew as the circle of her husband's
acquaintances widened. Any day someone might innocently
or maliciously mention the little girls to him.

It was some two months after her marriage that she felt the
time for the revelation had arrived. That day she made a
particularly effective demonstration of solicitude for the wel-
fare of her stepchildren. And in the evening, on returning
home from cheder, my father found two little girls, neatly
dressed, sitting side by side on the kitchen bench. They sat
rigid and unsmiling, as if they were aware of the serious
nature of their situation. Their stepbrothers and sisters stood
around, suspicious and ill at ease. Before my father could utter
a word, my mother, weeping and wringing her hands, rapidly
made her confession. The two little girls, she told him, were
the fruit of her former marriage. She had not wished to burden
him with the knowledge of their existence until she had
proved herself a true mother to his own children. But now
that she had proved herself one and she appealed to the
stepchildren for confirmation he would surely forgive her
and be a father to her children even as she was a mother to his.

My father, though outwardly a placid man, was prone to
outbursts of passionate anger. He listened to my mother
with mounting rage. She had hardly finished speaking when
he seized the little girls, hustled them out of the room into
the courtyard, and shut the door on them. The table had been
set for supper. But my father, hastily removing his skullcap
and putting on his hat, ran out of the house. My mother made
no attempt to detain him. When he was gone, she went out
into the courtyard and brought back her children, who, be-
wildered and too frightened to cry, had not moved from the
spot where my father had dumped them. Later that night my
mother dispatched Zalman with a basket of food to the cheder,

14 A LOST PARADISE

where she guessed her husband had taken refuge. She impro-
vised a bed for the two girls on the kitchen floor, and when
they fell asleep she put on her shawl and left the house. By
midnight she was at her father's house in Serotchaya. He had
not yet retired, and the two conversed earnestly for a long
time. Before she left for home, it was agreed that her father
should visit the cheder early next morning and do his utmost
to placate her husband. When she reached her own house,
Mayshe Baer had not returned. As she surmised, he had
chosen to spend the night in his cheder stretched out on one
of the benches.

The next morning her father appeared, bearing the best of
news. He had just come from the cheder and found his son-in-
law still smarting from my mother's treachery and the dis-
comfort of his makeshift bed. My father had demanded a
speedy divorce to wipe out the shame of a deception that
would in any case make him the laughingstock of the entire
city. My grandfather pointed out that not the deception but
the divorce would make him a laughingstock, since the divorce
would be the proof that he had been hoodwinked by a clever
woman. But there was a way to save both his own self-esteem
and the respect of Vitebsk, and that was for Mayshe Baer to
welcome the two little girls openly as if he had always known
about them and they had now merely returned from a pro-
tracted visit to their grandparents in the country. This sensible
advice my grandfather had enforced with learned quotations
in Hebrew and (to my father) obscure commentaries of an-
cient rabbis bearing on human frailty and the advantages accru-
ing in heaven to him who pities and forgives. Of course
Mayshe Baer had finally given in. Only an idiot, my grand-
father said, could fail to appraise the ridiculous position intran-
sigence would force on him, and Mayshe Baer was anything
but a fool.

My grandfather now cautioned my mother against ex-
ploiting her victory. She must be tender and understanding,

The Healing Earth 1 5

silent and submissive. It would be wise, he thought, if she
herself repaired to the cheder at lunch time and took her
husband a bit of food and a towel to wipe his hands on after
his matutinal ablution. Above all, she was not to reveal her
father's visit to her or pretend to any knowledge of the scene
at the cheder that morning. As her father prepared to return
to Serotchaya, my mother threw her arms around him in
gratitude for his successful intervention. He kissed the top of
her head and asked her why she had made only a partial
confession to her husband about the parentage of her children.
But before she could reply, he laughed and told her that she
did right in admitting to only one previous husband. There
are times, he said, when it is wiser not to strain a man's power
of endurance, and to confess only one thing at a time.

I was born punctually nine months after the marriage, be-
coming my father's fourth son and my mother's first. No note-
worthy event occurred at the time to highlight the date. But
my maternal grandmother had died the month before, and her
death, though for a long time expected, had seriously affected
my grandfather and, soon after, the well-being of his children.
At any rate her death and her funeral, a ceremony attended
out of deference to my grandfather by all the rich and poor
Jews of Vitebsk and the peasants of Serotchaya, gave my
birth an approximate date. In the weeks preceding my birth
my mother made daily trips to Serotchaya on foot to do what
she could to comfort her father, whose grief seemed to bear no
relation to his great piety and was a clear denial of his frequent
assurance to the bereaved and afflicted he used to visit that
God was merciful and wise and always knew what He was
doing. Each morning at seven after breakfast, when she had
given my father and Lebbe their bundles of lunch and sent
them off to cheder, she would set out for her father's farm.
She would return home in time to clean up the house and cook
the evening meal. After supper there were washing and mend-

l6 A LOST PARADISE

ing and sewing to do, and when she had finished and was ready
for bed it was often nearly time to get up.

I was a puny baby and a constant anxiety to my mother.
Like all Jewish wives, she had wanted a son, and her joy at
having one at last could not be tempered even by the death
of her mother and her adored father's frightening abandon-
ment to grief. She watched the fluctuating, thin life in the
cradle with an apprehension she was unable to conceal from
her stepchildren, who, for their part, saw no valid reason for a
further enlargement of an already numerous family. To my
father I was just another son. A son was, of course, always
better than a daughter, for both this world and the next, es-
pecially the next, where the prayers of every male offspring
for the soul of a dead father are heard and duly registered.
But my father had had no dearth of sons, and the latest one
cried all night and kept his wife from his bed.

On one of my puling, restless nights my mother, sitting
half-asleep by my cradle, brushed her hand against my fore-
head in the dark and found to her horror that I was "all
aflame"! The doctor lived a long way from our house, on the
"other" side of the river. By the time she got there, roused
him, and brought him back with her it might be too late!
She decided instead to run to the apothecary, who lived in the
back of his shop only half a mile away on "this" side of the
river, and get him to give her something to bring the child's
fever down. In the meantime she would wake her husband
and send him for the doctor. In this way she would have
taken all possible measures.

My mother, in relating the incident, said that it took her
less time to get to the apothecary's house than it did to rouse
him. He finally put his head out of the window, made out a
woman's form in the moonlight, hurriedly dressed, and
opened the door of his shop. All my mother could say to him
was that her baby was "on fire" and that he must save him.
He retreated into a back room, whither my mother followed

The Healing Earth 17

him, and while she implored him to hurry he concocted a
medicine and poured it into a bottle. Hardly comprehending
his precise instructions for its use and quite forgetting to pay
him, she tore the bottle out of his hand and ran from the shop.
She prayed aloud as she ran. And all at once a doubt entered
her mind. Prayer might not be enough! She had heard that
desperate moments called for the direct intercession of a dead
person preferably a saintly dead person, but best of all and
most efficacious a saintly dead person who was also a near
relative. The image of her mother rose before her. Her
mother, dead only a month (a most favorable circumstance in
itself), perhaps not as saintly as her father, but as good and
pious as it was possible for a woman to be, must intercede in
heaven for the life of her son. The cemetery lay a good
distance out of her way home, and a visit to her mother's
grave would delay the administering of the medicine. But
that was a chance she must take. She altered her course and
made for the cemetery, a distraught, disheveled figure running
in the moonlight, the bottle clasped tightly in both hands for
safety, the silence exaggerated by the sharp noise of her heels
on the cobblestones, noise that came after her footsteps, as if
made by someone close behind her. Frequently she turned her
head as she ran, to make sure she was alone.

A cemetery at night was acknowledged to be an awesome
place even by the most skeptical souls. My mother recalled
stories she had heard from childhood of persons who through
godlessness or vainglory had dared to visit a cemetery alone
at night and who, not surprisingly, were themselves found
dead beside some gravestone in the morning. My mother now
remembered that there was no headstone on her mother's
grave. Until the first anniversary of a death only a pebble or
rock was permissible on a grave. And now she was uncertain
just where to look for the grave, and she was conscious of
precious time slipping past her as she ran through endless
lanes between graves. At last she found herself on a familiar

l8 A LOST PARADISE

path, and soon she came upon the small, still fresh mound
she had been seeking. Too much time had already been lost!
She threw herself passionately on the grave, and as she did
so, the bottle flew out of her hands and hit the ground. She
retrieved it instantly, but the fall had decapitated it and the
precious liquid now stained the grave. There was no time
now to appeal to her mother. She scrambled to her feet and,
clutching the jagged bottle, fled at top speed through the
narrow lanes, out of the cemetery gates, and through the
shuttered, echoing streets. For a moment she had considered
returning to the apothecary's, but she abandoned the idea
when she remembered the doctor, who must certainly have
arrived at her home by now.

When, breathless, she reached home, the doctor was there
sitting beside the cradle and writing a prescription on a little
pad on his knee. He took no notice of my mother or of my
father and some of the older children who stood respectfully
at a distance. Nobody, under any circumstances, ever ad-
dressed the doctor first. And now my mother stared mutely
at my crimson face in the cradle and waited motionlessly for
the doctor to finish writing. He took a long time. When he
was through, he folded the paper leisurely and said, without
looking at my mother: "You are a foolish woman. An apothe-
cary knows nothing of medicine. He can only do what he is
told by a doctor. What did he give you?" My mother handed
him the broken bottle. Still without looking at her, he held
it to his nose, glanced at the label, and tossed it on the floor,
where it smashed to bits. He rose to go. "But God takes care
of the foolish," he said at the door. "That medicine would
have killed your child! Go back now and have that idiot Ell
this prescription." My mother seized the doctor's hand and
kissed it reverently. This the doctor suffered patiently and
indifferently, like royalty, which indeed he symbolized to his
poorer clients. When he made a call in winter he would throw

The Healing Earth 19

back his fur-lined overcoat, certain that some member of the
family would stand behind him waiting with outstretched
arms to catch and hold it up at arm's length for the duration
of the visit. He disdained all forms of greeting as tending to
encourage familiarity. My mother hastened to open the door
for him and he left the house silently, his eyes on the ground.

My oldest brother was immediately dispatched to the
apothecary, and my father, on learning the details of the
miraculous mishap at the cemetery, agreed that my life had
been saved by the direct, though unsolicited intervention of
my grandmother. He urged my mother to lose no time in
thanking her. And my mother, losing no time, put on her
shawl again and went back to the cemetery, where she
stretched herself prone on her mother's grave and remained
a long time, thanking her and weeping tears of gratitude and
joy.

After that happy catastrophe of the medicine bottle my
mother sought her mother's grave directly anyone she loved
was threatened by calamity or disease, confident that the
beneficent shade would not fail her. It did, however, fail her
once. A year after I was born, my mother gave birth to an-
other son, an ailing infant who died after some weeks of a
feeble straggle to survive. As the child grew worse, my
mother increased her visits to the cemetery both morning
and evening, but to no avail. She went again the day after
the baby's funeral, but it was not to reproach her mother.
Instead she implored her to be increasingly watchful over me.
For it was now clear to her that for some reason best known
to herself her mother desired that I should remain an only
son. After all, I had been saved and my little brother had been
allowed to perish. I must be, then, my grandmother's special
charge. But since the dead were known to be, at times, as
forgetful as the living, it was only prudent to remind them,
occasionally, of certain obligations they had assumed. My

2O A LOST PARADISE

mother maintained that except for the unfortunate lapse in
the case of my infant brother my grandmother never wavered
in her protection of persons dear to her daughter. My mother
would recall the anxious days when her own daughters,
Hannah and Mirele, came down with typhoid. They were
critically ill for a long time, their heads having to be shaved
and the room kept in sernidarkness. I, who was four or five
at the time, laughed to see them without hair, but I was
obliged to stop up my ears to shut out the sound of their loud
and quite incoherent prattle. For, notwithstanding the doctor's
frequent visits, they were often out of their heads. At length
my mother in desperation sought the familiar grave in the
cemetery. After some agonized visits the girls' fever abated
and they presently rested cool and silent. The doctor, for
once deigning to speak, said that he had steered them safely
past the crisis. My mother kissed his hand and thanked him.
But in her heart she knew better.

When I was five years old, I became a pupil in my father's
cheder. I had learned the alphabet at home in order to qualify
for the youngest group. Though my mother often complained
about my being around all day trailing at her skirts and getting
in her way, she pleaded for another year of indolence for me.
But my father was adamant; and each morning at seven we
set out for cheder, I holding his hand as we walked or, grow-
ing fatigued, trailing behind him, with the bundle of food for
our lunch which my mother had prepared and given me under
my arm.

My father's cheder was now well established in the town.
In the six years he had lived and taught in Vitebsk he had
earned a reputation for probity and discipline, if not for
erudition. He began to be looked upon as an authority on the
upbringing of boys, more especially of intractable ones; and
parents came to the cheder to consult him about aspects of

The Healing Earth 2 1

their children's behavior which would ordinarily be outside
the concern and jurisdiction of a teacher of Hebrew. We soon
learned that the purpose of these seemingly friendly parental
calls was in every case punitive.

I remember how surprised I was when the parents of one
of the best-behaved and most studious boys called unex-
pectedly one day toward lunch time. My father, after greeting
them affably, sent us out of the room. When we were re-
assembled we could see by the cold, determined look on my
father's face and the uneasiness of the visitors that my father,
after hearing and judging the complaint, had recommended
severe punishment, to be administered by himself as a disin-
terested outsider. In cheder the boy had always been a model
of behavior, but, obviously, he was not so at home. His guilt
was now evident, for he began to look furtively around the
room as if for an avenue of escape. My father called to him
in a voice that I had often heard at home, a cool, impersonal
voice, as deceptive as the dull whiteness of molten steel. The
boy, disregarding my father's command, ran to his mother
instead, who herself made a protecting movement toward him;
but her husband barred her way. My father seized the dis-
tracted boy with one hand and with the other undid his own
leather belt. He then shoved the boy face down across his
knee. As he wielded the belt, my father's face grew white
with rage. The rhythm of his strokes imparted a correspond-
ing rhythm to his speech: "So! You are good in che der
and bad at home! -So! You thought you would never
be found out! This will teach you. . . ." The boy's
mother murmured softly : "Enough enough . . ."My father
kept on administering his strokes with restrained, deliberate
fury. At last the boy's father interposed: "Enough, Mayshe
Baer enough. We are satisfied. 77 My father dropped the boy
to the floor and replaced his belt. The boy's father led his
sobbing wife from the room. "Thank you, Mayshe Baer," he

22 A LOST PARADISE

said weakly as he opened the street door; "we are both
greatly obliged to you.''

As the rabbi's son, I was a power in cheder. Not so my
stepbrother Lebbe, who should have taken precedence over
me in that respect by reason of seniority. For some reason
Lebbe was considered just one among a dozen boys. He was
obviously not influential, and the boys made free with him
as if he was one of themselves and not the son of the rabbi.
Lebbe was taciturn and afraid of his father, and on our walk
to and from cheder he either ran ahead of us or walked far
behind. My position was altogether different. It was true
that I had as little influence with my father as Lebbe had, but
the attitude of the boys toward me indicated that they be-
lieved I might have more if I so desired. I did nothing to
disillusion them. I went about with a knowing look and suf-
fered them to pamper me. They gave me pieces of candy
and things they prized and carried in their pockets, like pieces
of string and bottle corks, with the tacit understanding that
in the event of their incurring the displeasure of the rabbi I
would divert his wrath or at least mitigate the severity of
their punishment. That I could not or did not carry out my
part of the bargain had no effect on the boys' generosity to
me or on my leading' position in the school. As for myself,
my father had thus far never laid a hand on me in cheder, and
as time went on I felt more and more certain of my immunity.
Boys were flogged for sins committed in cheder or for those
reported by harassed parents, but it was to me unthinkable
that I should ever find myself in the humiliating position 1
had so frequently witnessed.

But one day, long remembered for the violent contrast be-
tween the pleasant serenity of its beginning and the mental
anguish I endured before it was ended, I became aware of a
change in my father's ordinarily patient and sometimes even
indulgent attitude toward me in cheder. It was my turn to

The Healing Earth 2 3

read a paragraph In Genesis. It was a new chapter for the
class, and I read my Hebrew lines cautiously and certain
words haltingly. Looking up at him inquiringly, as I was
wont to do when in difficulties, I caught a look in his eyes that
I had seen often enough directed at other boys, but never at
me. He prodded the recalcitrant word on the page with his
forefinger and said "Nu! (Well!)" in a cold, menacing voice.
The other boys around the table looked up from their books
in astonishment, and a hush fell on all the other tables. I was
quite taken aback. Could it be that my father had discovered
that I had been trading on our relationship and accepting
bribes and that he was seizing a pretext to put me in my
proper place as an ordinary member of the class, like Lebbe,
and at the same time was serving notice on the boys that I
was powerless to influence him on their behalf? What else
could his strange behavior signify? I had mispronounced and
stumbled over words before with no resultant show of dis-
pleasure on his part. The sober atmosphere of the room seemed
to confirm my own sense of the gravity of the situation. I felt
that there was only one thing that I might do: I had quickly
to deflect my father's mounting wrath from myself to some-
one else. I heard myself say coolly and quite deliberately:
"Yesterday I saw her hit Sarah with the broom."

I knew that my father was always on the watch for any
evidence of mistreatment by my mother of her stepchildren.
I had hit him in his most vulnerable spot. To mistreat his
"motherless" Sarah not only was to prove his contention that
stepmothers as a class had to be cruel to their stepchildren,
but was also a blow at his own position as head of the house
and protector of his children. Thus far he had been unable to
find such proof, though he had succeeded by his watchfulness
and suspicion in creating the very tensions and antagonisms he
so feared. If my mother sent one of his children on an errand,
he wondered why she hadn't sent one of her own instead. And
when she felt obliged to be sharp with them (she took care

24 A LOST PARADISE

to be sharper with her own), he would call them his "or-
phans" to their faces, to my mother's embarrassment and
confusion.

Faced with sudden danger, I had lied to save myself; for I
had not seen my mother hit Sarah with a broom. And I was
saved, I could see, at least for the present. My father said:
"Takke? (Really?),' 7 and then repeated the word. It was his
favorite expression, and it served many purposes. Unlettered
as he was except for a literal knowledge of the Bible and a few
commentaries in Hebrew, it was for him a basic word, whose
meaning could be altered by mere intonation. By raising or
lowering his voice, by stress or lack of it, by coldness or
intensity of delivery it could indicate a simple query (takke?},
indignation (takkef), naive perplexity (takke?) -indeed,
every variety of incredulity or the coldly savage acceptance
of a challenge. I now understood perfectly the implications of
his reiterated "takke!" The first was simple incredulity, the
second an outburst of lacerated pride, with savage overtones
of terrible retribution that would be shaped and carried out in
due course. Then he fell silent, his forefinger still pressing
the fatal word in my book. He stared into space over the
heads of the boys, and his face flushed and went white al-
ternately as waves of anger washed over him, and at each
recession thoughts of revenge rushed into the vacancy; at
least the determined, brutal expression of his features seemed
to me the plastic embodiment of vengeance. He had quite for-
gotten me and whatever reprimand he had designed to put
me in my place. He seemed lost to any consideration but that
of the enormity of my mother's treachery and of the epic
punishment he would devise. After a while he became con-
scious of the boys in the room and he got up and moved to the
table for the advanced students. Outwardly he looked himself
again, and he conducted the lesson with his usual impersonal
efficiency. But I knew that he was pigeonholing his wrath and
his ideas of vengeance for the rest of the day.

The Healing Earth 2 5

Later, walking home behind him, I became aware of the
new danger that awaited me when we reached the house. For,
of course, my mother would deny the accusation and her
stepdaughter would bear her out. I thought of my mother and
how much I loved her, and I wondered at myself for having
planned to hurt her. She would never believe that I had meant
to hurt her. I must tell her, I must make it clear that in doing
what I did I hadn't thought of her at all, but only of myself.
I must tell my father right away, and then perhaps my
mother need never know. As for myself, the worst my father
could do was to beat me. At the moment I felt I could face
anything but my mother's bewildered, reproachful look. I
hastily overtook my father and seized his hand, which, to my
surprise, he suffered me to take. And as I ran beside him to
keep pace with his rapid strides I confessed to the lie. He
did not believe me at first, and dropped my hand in anger.
But when I told him that he could learn the truth from Sarah
herself, he said nothing more and I took his hand again.
Once he paused to ask me why I had lied to him in the first
place, and I, lying again, said I didn't know. But I implored
him to say nothing about my sin to my mother. He did keep
my secret, perhaps for reasons of his own. And after several
weeks had passed and I grew more certain that he would not
give me away, I promised myself as an act of atonement to
make a full confession to my mother at the earliest favorable
moment. Many opportunities presented themselves, but none,
in my opinion, was favorable. And in time the incident itself
passed out of my mind. In cheder my status remained un-
altered. My successful maneuver had increased my prestige
with the boys, and I continued to be the object of flattery and
the recipient of unsolicited, yet none the less welcome, gifts.

The situation at home as it presented itself to a boy of six
without any knowledge of the true relationship of the pro-
tagonists or of the nature of the passions involved was often
baffling, but almost always dramatic. I felt that tensions were

26 A LOST PARADISE

intermittently at play in the overcrowded house, and I grew
to anticipate the periodic, open clashes with a certain pleasur-
able horror, as later, when I began to attend the theater, I
would look forward with a like emotion to the denouement
of a tragic play. My earliest recollection of the charged at-
mosphere of my home is that of an interminable game played
by apparently evenly matched forces, now one side trium-
phant, now the other, myself a passionate spectator absorbed
in the battle, favoring neither side; indeed, often inclined
through love of mischief or out of what 1 thought self-interest
to play one side against the other. But soon after, as my years
and sensibility grew, I realized that my sympathies and in-
terests lay with the side I loved best, the side of my mother
and my half-sisters, Hannah and Mirele.

Those two still unwanted girls, young as they were, had
been diplomatically put to work at a tobacconist's to package
cigarettes for a few kopeks a day. This meagerly rewarded
employment provided my mother with a defense against her
husband's frequent charge that the girls were eating him out
of house and home. Hannah and Mirele were attractive and
sensitive. They differed, however, in temperament. Hannah,
the elder of the two, was patient and long-suffering, always
eager to avoid battle with the women of my father's faction.
Mirele was high-spirited and impetuous, eager to engage the
enemy and highly proficient in counterabuse and invective.
The two clung to each other and to my mother and me,
though they often quarreled with each other and pulled each
other's hair, so that it seemed to me they must remain bitter
enemies thereafter. But they always made up quickly, did
little offices for each other, and were inseparable. And they
showed plainly that they loved me.

My position in the house was unique. Though I belonged,
naturally, to my mother's camp, I was, through my father,
also a member of the opposite faction. I was, in fact, inviolate.
My father's other children perhaps envied me my pleasant

The Healing Earth 2 7

status, but they were never hostile and very often friendly.
My father seemed to like me; at least he was less aloof and
impersonal with me than with his other sons. As for my
mother, whose affection I craved most, I thought for a long
time I had no rival there. There was, of course, my father.
I cannot say how I became aware of the danger from that
quarter to my supremacy in my mother's heart. There were
no visible signs in the demeanor of my parents to each other
that I might construe as danger signals. Their life at home was
a long truce, frequently and rather unaccountably interrupted
by skirmishes and great battles. During these my father
rather monotonously concentrated on three charges: my
mother's now historic deception, her hatred of "his" children,
and her household extravagance. The first left my mother
mute, but against the other two she defended herself pas-
sionately. The third did, indeed, defy proof. The family was
large, the income small. Yet my mother could point to the
general "decent" look of the house and to the plain fact that
no one ever complained of hunger. My father could bring up
the matter of my first pair of shoes, which my mother had
ordered from the traveling cobbler during his autumn visit, as
an extravagance in a household operating on an economic
plane so low as to deny footwear to all but the three oldest
children. But my mother countered with the claim that since
her arrangement with the shoemaker called for payment at
some unspecified future time, there had occurred no actual
transaction at which money had passed. That being the case,
a charge of extravagance on that score was obviously absurd.
The second charge she always denied with a great show of
moral indignation and contempt for a mind that could so
misread the humanity and the nobility of her nature.

Learning was for my mother in the highest degree esti-
mable, and the learned were the only true elite. She had in-
stilled this belief in her two daughters and in me. And we,
developing in our youth, and quite on our own, a feeling for

28 A LOST PARADISE

the aesthetic, in turn were able to communicate our enthusiasm
for art to her and make her a sympathetic though vaguely
comprehending ally in our battle against the philistinism of
the larger side of our family and, later in life, of the larger
side of the world.

For my mother the world separated itself into the learned
and pious (not the academic, but the mystically pious) and
the mass of people, whose only problem was that of existence.
In her father she was privileged to observe at close range the
operation of learning and piety as a moral and as a humani-
tarian force. Being of a practical turn of mind, she sometimes
considered her father's selflessness extreme to the point of
foolishness. Yet its very extravagance was a proof to her of
the power of the word of God when it was accepted literally
as a way of life.

Judged by these lofty standards, her husband could not
qualify for either category. His learning was elementary, his
piety merely doctrinaire. He appeared to be unaware of the
interdependence of learning and life. She could not escape
being aware that spiritually there was a gulf between her
husband and herself. She did not blame him. He had not had
the good fortune of a cultural past. And without such a herit-
age one becomes a prey of elementary moods, passions, and
prejudices that only culture can channel, curb, and modify.
He was never able to view himself dispassionately. She had
never known him in moments of rage to pause and exclaim
in self-criticism, as she was wont to do in like circumstances:
"May God forgive me!" But if those were her thoughts, she
never spoke them. And while she openly adored her father
and refrained from any public demonstrations of affection for
my father, there were no visible signs of discontent and un-
happiness on her part.

Indeed, during the periods of truce a palpable contentment
would descend on the house. At those times usually born
of the temporary absence of economic and domestic irritations

The Healing Earth 29

my mother went about her chores with an air of satisfaction
that I found, curiously enough, disturbing. It embraced not
only her daughters and me, but also the rest of the family. It
was as if she had decided to renounce her feeling of superiority
to her husband and stepchildren and to welcome them to her
own social level. When my father returned from cheder, she
would come out to the courtyard to greet him, her face newly
scrubbed, her own hair slightly wet from combing, parted
carefully in the middle and done up in a bun at the back. (My
mother had resisted all pressures to make her cut off her
hair and wear the traditional "sheitel" [wig].) The soup,
which we ate last, would be scalding so that my father should
have no cause to complain. After supper my mother and father
would converse amiably and retire early, often leaving the
dishes to be washed by the girls. Once my father created a
sensation by commanding his two elder daughters to clean
up! There might even be a temporary rapprochement between
the opposing sides. My youngest sister, Golde, was born
during one of these harmonious stretches. My father showed
an unusual solicitude for the health of mother and child, and
the other children greeted the new arrival in a friendly spirit.
Because of its long duration, that particular interlude be-
came historic for me. It was packed with exciting events and
experiences, made possible by my father's placid frame of
mind and apparent friendliness toward me. Walking to and
from cheder, he talked to me about the Tsar, about God, and
about the miracles attributed to celebrated Chassidic rabbis.
The Tsar, according to my father, found his vast riches rather
a nuisance than a pleasure. I laughed to hear that he owned so
many shirts that for appearance' sake he felt obliged to don
a new one every hour of the day! God sat in the heavens,
benign or vengeful, in keeping with the behavior of the people
on earth. And His memory was stupendous. He forgot nothing,
as many wrongdoers (that is, those who failed to observe the
Sabbath or missed a prescribed prayer) found to their dismay

30 A LOST PARADISE

on Judgment Day. The celebrated Chassidic rabbis all en-
joyed supernatural powers. One of them, walking with some-
one just as we were doing at the moment, might suddenly
disappear into thin air. His astonished companion would con-
tinue to hear the rabbi's voice uttering words of great wisdom.
A second later the Chassid would choose to become corporeal
again. When I gasped at this intelligence, my father smiled
and looked pleased. But he said such an occurrence was really
not to be wondered at, as these exceptional persons were on
speaking terms with God. I saw his point, but it did not lessen
my wonder.

He took me one unforgettable Sunday to a large field on
the outskirts of the town where a great celebration of some-
thing (I can't remember what) was in progress. Thousands
of people were assembled, some seated in a grandstand (the
Governor of the province of Vitebsk was the guest of honor),
but most standing around in large groups, i heard the music
of a brass band and watched ladies in spangled tights walking
across wires strung at perilous heights. The climax of the
celebration was a balloon ascent, followed by a parachute
jump by a famous acrobat-comedian. I had never seen a bal-
loon, and I could hardly contain my excitement as I watched
the enormous bag rise from the ground and soar into the sky.
There were two men in the basket under the balloon, and
one of them climbed over the edge and onto a trapeze that
swayed underneath. He was the celebrated acrobat-comedian,
and he performed acrobatic feats that were both hazardous
and comical, and the crowd gasped and laughed alternately.
When the balloon had become a tiny ball in the sky the acro-
bat-comedian, who now looked no bigger than a twig, ceased
his antics and made ready to jump. His companion leaned
over the side of the basket and handed him the parachute.
My father had explained to me the function of this instru-
ment, telling me to watch closely for the moment it would
open and bring the man slowly and safely to earth. With the

The Healing Earth 3 1

parachute in one hand, the other grasping the wire of the
trapeze, the little figure stood poised for a long while looking
down on the sea of faces turned toward him. Then, with a
great warning shout, which we could all hear plainly, he
leaped into the air. Straight down he plummeted. I strained
my eyes to look at the parachute. It refused to open. Sud-
denly the figure turned head over heels, then fell like a stone
with a tremendous thud on the roof of a cowshed a few feet
from where I was standing. There were horrified cries of
"Save him! Save him!" but he had rolled to the ground and
lay bloody and inert, the cord of the parachute clutched in his
hand. A moment later men ran up and carried him away.
But I had looked closely at him and was bewildered and
troubled by the sight. It seemed impossible that the little
gesticulating figure I had seen posturing on the rim of the
balloon basket had in an instant become the silent, careless
bundle that lay at my feet. There seemed to be no relation
between them.

I had known before about death. A playmate had failed to
appear on the street for several days, and in explanation I was
told that he had died. From a window I watched his funeral
go past my house. I had felt a sense of deprivation. But there
was also a sense of continuity between the friend I had played
with and the unseen boy in the pine box that was carried past
my house. He would go on resting, silent, but in spirit ac-
cessible to his friends and relations, like my grandmother in
the same cemetery on the edge of the town. There his mother
would probably pay him frequent visits and converse with
him as my mother did with my grandmother. This was not
the same Death I had seen in the field. But only one of them
could be the true Death. And because I could not accept and
live with a Death so final as the brutal and ludicrous one I
had just witnessed, I chose not to regard it as Death at all.
I chose to forget its horror and remember it as part of the
entertainment of an exciting day.

32 A LOST PARADISE

Soon I was duplicating in our back yard for the boys of the
neighborhood the entire "show" of that Sunday afternoon, the
tightwire-walking and the parachute jump, the last being
negotiated from the slanting roof of our house. As I made the
leap clutching a folded umbrella in my hand, 1 yelled: "Save
him! Save him!" And on landing on the ground on my feet
I collapsed in a ludicrous, ungainly heap and lay motionless,
while my audience clapped and shouted with delight.

CHAPTER TWO

. Harris

W

f f HE

' HEN I was a boy of eight or nine, at the be-
ginning of the century, I would often accompany my mother
to the offices of a charitable organization that looked after the
welfare of Jewish immigrants arriving in New York from
overseas. The offices were on East Broadway near Pike
Street, only a long block from the tenement at East Broadway
and Rutgers Street in which I lived. The organization sent its
representatives to meet incoming boats. They would circulate
among the steerage passengers, assist those who had not been
met by friends and relatives, do what they could to find them
temporary lodgings, and take them back to the society's
offices while they traced their relations or landsleit (fellow
townsmen). The society was also prepared to advance the
purchase price of steamship tickets to people who desired to
bring members of their families to America, but who did not

34 A LOST PARADISE

possess the necessary cash. The arrangement required no de-
posit of collateral, but the society investigated the ability of
the borrowers to meet the small weekly payments (without
interest) toward their liquidation of the debt. My mother,
over a period of years, made several such deals with the
society. The relatives she helped transport from the Old
World to America put no further strain on the generosity of
the society. My mother always met them at the pier- and
installed them in our three-room tenement, where they re-
sided for weeks and months, and even for years. My mother's
trips to the society to purchase steamship tickets or to pay
the installments due on them never ceased.

Young as I was, I took an interest in the humane objectives
of the society (I never knew the society's full title), and al-
ways gladly accompanied my mother to its offices. There we
were always sure to find sad and bewildered immigrants sit-
ting on dilapidated suitcases and wicker trunks in a large,
unfurnished room reserved for them. The relatives and friends
they had expected to find on the pier had failed to show up.
My mother would interrogate the more dejected arrivals.
Sometimes she would invite one of them to spend a few days
with us in our generally overcrowded apartment. The be-
wildered but grateful guest would shoulder his wicker trunk;
my mother and I would carry what suitcases he had; and thus
laden we would arrive home, where the stranger was wel-
comed by the rest of the family and given what accommoda-
tions were available. If, as sometimes happened, there was no
available floor space for him to lie down at night, my mother
would canvass the resources of friends and neighbors, always
with satisfactory results.

It was quite natural for our family to enter into the plight
of the bewildered immigrants and to value the kind efforts
of the society. For, only three years before, we, too, had
arrived friendless in a strange country and had been met by an
agent of a society, though not this one, who spoke our Ian-

Mr. Harris <$

guage and attended to our needs. To ease the anxieties of our
occasional house guests, the story of our own vicissitudes was
often told them by my mother or father, or by both in friendly
rivalry, with eager interruptions and reminders and, I now
believe, embellishments that were often more picturesque
than truthful. But I was able to corroborate the essentials of
the story, for I had been both an actor in it and an eyewitness.
As for the embellishments, I accepted them as a legitimate
device to ensure the continued attention of our audience. In
truth, our listeners, understandably overwrought and distrait,
usually responded more warmly to the fabrications, which
took the form of comic relief, than to the realistic details.

When my father was the narrator, he would begin the tale
at the point where he and his wife and children left their
native Russia on the way to the New World, a continent
which consisted, for him as well as for most immigrants, only
of the United States. (I was surprised later to learn of the
existence of Mexico and Canada.) But when my mother told
the story, she would begin with a description of our early life
in our native city of Vitebsk, recall her own girlhood and
marriage, and lead up, by slow and interesting stages, to the
moment of our departure. I preferred my mother's senti-
mental, rambling narration because it gave color and dimen-
sion to my own increasingly fuzzy memories. I loved to hear
her speak of her father's little farm, a few miles from Vitebsk*
where she and her numerous brothers and sisters were brought
up, and of her father, a saintly man whom she loved next to*
her own children. I had loved him too, and my memories of
him were still fresh. Several times a year he would come to
town to spend the Sabbath with us. I would be told in advance
that he was coming and would be out on the street waiting
for him. He would always walk the three miles from his farm
to our house, and I would catch sight of him in the distance,
his tall figure slightly bent, walking slowly with the aid of a
stick and carrying in his left hand three or four large apples

36 A LOST PARADISE

tied in a colored handkerchief, which he invariably brought
me as a gift. When I came up to him, he would hand me his
stick and handkerchief, place his arms on my head, and bless
me, after which he would press me to him hard and kiss me
many times, and I would smell the sweet aroma of snuff which
clung to his hands and his long, shiny double-breasted coat.
He had the most elaborately curled earlocks of any old man
I had ever seen, a long, thin face, prominent nose, and high
forehead, and small twinkling eyes. When he sat, it was
always bolt upright, supporting this position with rigid arms
and clenched fists resting on his knees. I have a photograph
of him sitting thus, with his eldest son, Solomon, standing
behind him. It is an old daguerreotype taken on the occa-
sion of Solomon's bar ?mtzvah, or coming of age, when he was
thirteen. At the time we left Russia, my Uncle Solomon was
a man of forty, a well-known rabbi and scholar, with a wife
and many children. Yet his future greatness had been fore-
shadowed at the time the photograph was taken. Even at that
tender age he had proved himself so precocious a scholar that
his bar mitzvah attracted learned men and rabbis from places
as distant as Dvinsk, a two-hour trip on the Dvina from
Vitebsk. An even finer recognition of my uncle's precocity
came with my grandfather's announcement during the large
repast that was served after the bar mitzvah ceremonies that
the young Solomon was already affianced to the daughter of
the Dvinsk rabbi! The marriage would of course have to wait
until the groom reached the mature age of seventeen. But, for
the moment, the double ceremony made the extraordinary
youth the hero of the neighborhood.

Such detailed bits of family history brightened my mother's
narration of our flight from Russia. At some point in the story,
my father might become impatient with what for him was
merely feminine discursivness. Then he would, without
apology, proceed to take over in the interest of veracity and
realism. He usually began with the day he, and presumably

Mr. Harris 37

my mother, arrived at their decision to sell their house and
embark for America. It was, even I could recall, for us a very
grave decision. I, though then only a child of six, was aware
of its importance for my future and for that of my brothers
and sisters. We were poor. Our one-story frame house stood
on "this side" of the Dvina, the unfashionable side, "the
other side" housing the town's affluent Jews. It had taken my
father many years to pay for our frame house out of his small
earnings as a teacher in a cheder. Though the house had few
rooms, and one of them was rented out to a widowed "onion
woman" so called because she specialized in that vegetable
at her stall in the market-place and her grown son, I thought
it roomy and adequate for our family of twelve.

Perhaps children remember with pleasure any habitation
associated with their childhood. I recall mine as a snug and
pleasant abode, generally redolent of twist bread baking in
our brick oven, the cavernous fiery interior of which delighted
and scared me when my mother opened its heavy iron door
and dexterously extracted the loaves with a long, flat wooden
shovel. Especially enchanting was our house on Friday even-
ings. In the early morning, when I left it with my. father to
go to cheder, it looked untidy and bedraggled. But when we
came back after synagogue at night, a great change had taken
place. Everything was orderly and in its place. The floors
glistened with fresh sand. The long table was formally set for
the Sabbath. The light from the candles caused the twist
breads set in front of my father's place (where he would
presently ceremoniously bless them) to glow in their high
varnish of egg yolk, and accentuated the cleanliness of the
newly scrubbed faces of my mother and sisters. In winter the
rooms held a variety of culinary and other warm smells, the
identification of which became a game for me at night in my
bed before I went to sleep. The frost on the windows and the
little snowdrifts lying snug against the corners of the panes
gave one a delicious feeling of security and well-being.

38 A LOST PARADISE

In the spring and summer the house was less important to
me, except, of course, at night, when it was a solid barrier
against distant noises outside, like the baying of dogs or the
howling of -for all I knew wolves. Horrifying rumors of
the appearance of wolves, even in places as close to town as
my grandfather's farm, were heard constantly. During most
of each long summer day I stayed in our large fcnced-in yard;
I plucked and ate seeds from the round faces of tall sunflowers
growing in a patch of garden where my mother raised carrots
and beets, and I drank endless glasses of tea with the older
people from a copper samovar that always stood on a rustic
table beside the house. The life was to rne deeply satisfying.
! 1 gathered, from overhearing my parents' frequent discus-
sions of their plans, that their decision to transplant them-
selves and their children to America had no relation to those
material inducements of the New World which motivated
the migrations of our neighbors, but was based solely on their
desire to spare my brothers, and eventually me, the military
service exacted of all able-bodied males in Russia. Military
service, in my father's eyes, was not an evil in itself, having
been ordained by a ruler who enjoyed the protection of God.
But military service for Jews meant the disruption of Jewish
ritual life, and in that respect it was irreligious and a thing
to be, if possible, avoided.

< My father had for some time been in correspondence with
a second cousin who had emigrated to America for motives
less praiseworthy than those which now impelled my parents.
This relative had prospered and was living comfortably in
Passaic, New Jersey, a region described in his letters as a
veritable Eden. He and his two sons were profitably engaged
in the junk business and, as an evidence of his success in the
venture, in one of his letters he had enclosed his business card*
The card was a large one, and contained, besides the name
and address, many words in English, which we could not, of
course, understand. My father, conjecturing that the words

Mr. Harris 39

might carry explicit directions to the Passaic postmen, was
most careful to transcribe the entire contents of the card when
addressing an envelope to his cousin in America. Many years
later I discovered the card in an old pocketbook of my
father's and learned with astonishment that the words he had
,so laboriously copied out called attention to his cousin's in-
stant readiness to call in person, any hour of the day or
evening, on all who wished to dispose of surplus junk at
prices, paid instantly in cash, which were far more generous
than those of rival dealers in Passaic and in the entire state
of New Jersey.

This prosperous relation now urged my father to lose no
time in selling our house, and with the money to purchase
steamship passage to New York. He was well aware, he
wrote, that there would be little money left. But we were not
to worry. Once safely across the face of the big ocean (his
letters sometimes waxed poetic), we would make our home
with him until we could get on our feet. This would not take
long, he assured us. America (and Passaic in particular) was
the Golden, the Promised, Land. There would be work for
my brothers and sisters and there was even, at the moment, a
rare opportunity for the establishment of a cheder by my
father. There were many Jewish families in Passaic, and
pedagogues were scarce.

After much deliberation my father sold the house. It was
bought by, of all people, the onion woman, whose unsuspected
solvency mortified the neighborhood, which had always
consigned her to the lowest rung of the social ladder and
treated her with indifference and often with contempt. The
new owner, however, quickly dispelled any uneasiness the
neighborhood might have felt about her social ambitions by
saying that she intended to continue to live in her one room
and would rent out the rest of the house.

The news of our intention to emigrate brought to the house
strange men who vied with one another in offering us a com-

4O A LOST PARADISE

plete journey from Vitebsk to New York for a price that
could not be matched anywhere else in Russia. For weeks our
house was alive with these agents. When they met each other
I could see plainly they were not on friendly terms; and when
they were alone with my father they called his attention to
the low business standards and unethical practices of their
rivals. My father, after patiently listening to all who ap-
peared, finally closed with one whose straightforward sincer-
ity inspired confidence.

The moment arrived when every detail of our departure
had been attended to, even to the baking of hundreds of
kuchkch. These were large diamond-shaped wafers made of
flour, sugar, and water. They were to be our only nourish-
ment for the entire journey unless our ship could boast a
bona fide kosher kitchen. Besides the huge bag of kuchlech,
our baggage consisted of all our bedding, household utensils,,
a wicker trunk with the family's surplus garments, two brass
candlesticks, and a copper teakettle. There was to be a fare-
well family dinner at my grandfather's farm, and I was sent
there the day before, so that I wouldn't be in anyone's way
while the packing was going on. Early the next day, uncles,
aunts, and cousins, with all their children, began to arrive, and
finally a wagon drew up with my father, mother, brothers,
and sisters and all our baggage; for we were to board a
paddle-boat on the Dvina at a landing only a mile from my
grandfather's house, on the first stage of our journey to
America.

My mother sat next to her father at the farewell dinner,
which began about noon. My grandfather used to say that he
loved all his children impartially, and his behavior toward
them was certainly impeccable, but he could not altogether
conceal his pride in my Uncle Solomon for his rabbinical
achievements or his fondness for my mother. He was sad and
mostly silent during the long course of our farewell dinner.
But when the time came for us to leave the table, he began

Mr. Harris 41

to speak rapidly about his sorrow and approaching loneliness
and the inscrutable intentions of Providence. He spoke in
long, rolling phrases, interpolating poetical quotations, some
of which I had myself encountered in the Book of Genesis,
which 1 had studied in cheder. I can remember snatches of
sentences addressed toward my mother and, I thought, to-
ward me as well: "The Almighty will guide you safely over
the great waters. . . . Lord, take them under Your mighty
wing. . . . These dim eyes will not see them again. , . .
But the Eternal, the Ever-Watchful, will not let them out of
His sight."

We then left on foot for the wharf, our baggage having
preceded us there by cart. We had said good-by to everyone.
But my grandfather insisted on accompanying us, and his slow
pace retarded our progress. I was impatient to see the paddle-
boat that was to bear us away forever, and would have run
ahead; but my mother held my hand firmly as we walked, and
it was a long time before we sighted the pier and the boat
with its enormous, gaily painted paddle-wheel. When we
reached the pier, my mother suddenly flung her arms around
my grandfather and clung to him, weeping, for an embar-
rassingly long time. She then as suddenly disengaged herself
and, without once looking back or waving, made her way to
the boat and disappeared into its interior. The rest of the
family followed, but remained on deck and waved to the old
man, who stood rooted to the spot where my mother had left
him, oblivious of our gestures, for he did not wave back. The
whistle blew and the gangplank was removed. A towpath ran
parallel with the river for some miles. When the boat began
to move, my grandfather suddenly came to life. He started
walking and, as the boat picked up speed, running along
the path, trying to keep us in sight as long as he could. I
watched the hurrying, stumbling figure grow smaller and
smaller, and at last dwindle away.

We paddled lesiurely down the Dvina and reached Riga

42 A LOST PARADISE

on the third day. There we transferred to a boat that would
take us to Stettin, where we were to board the ship that
would carry us to America. As the boat pulled out of Riga
we had our last glimpse of our native land. To my surprise,
we were all taken down to the hold of the ship and locked
into a storage room for coal next to the ship's engines. But
my father had been told beforehand to expect a temporary
concealment during the period when the police came on board
to make their routine inspection of the passengers' passports.
As we had no passports, we were to remain hidden in the coal
room until the police had gone and the boat had put out to
sea. We sat silent and fearful on the dusty floor for a long
time. At last we heard the sound of the engines starting up,
and presently we knew from the creaking all around us that
we were moving.

The time must have been about dusk, for my father now
signaled my brothers to evening prayers. They all turned to
the wall on their left and began to pray, swaying back and
forth and softly beating their breasts the while, as they always
did at evening prayers. A moment later the boat pitched
headlong into the turbulent Baltic. The coal suddenly shifted
to the side where we were huddled. The floor receded from
under our feet, and my father and brothers wavered and fell
to the floor. I was seized with a dreadful nausea, and retched
and vomited until, half dead, I fell into a sleep like a coma.
Sometime later we were released and helped on deck; and
there we spent the night, on the floor, on stools, and on pieces
of luggage, for nothing would induce any of us to brave the
airless terrors of the interior of the ship.

We reached Stettin, in Germany, the next morning and
boarded the ship for America. This boat was disappointingly
small, being not very much larger than the one we had quitted.
There were any number of big ships moored to piers and
anchored in the bay, and I assumed they were bound for more
distant places than New York. I remembered the vision of

Mr. Harris 43

"great waters" my grandfather had conjured up, and I won-
dered if our modest vessel could make a dignified showing in
them.

We had a small cabin with a porthole to ourselves. Three
tiers of bunks lined the walls. Our baggage had already been
dumped in the middle of the room. My mother extricated
the canvas bag containing the indispensable kuchlech. But now
again, our boat ran into heavy seas soon after we sailed, and
the kuchlech remained untouched. We crawled into our bunks
and remained there fully dressed for two days, groaning,
vomiting, dozing, and taking no nourishment except water
and some oranges a sailor brought us each morning. On the
morning of the third day the sea began to quiet down, though
sheets of rain still beat against the porthole. We felt better
and climbed out of our bunks feeling hungry for the first
time. We were about to attack the kuchlech, which my
mother began handing around, when two sailors appeared and
conveyed to us in German and in dumb show that we were
about to land.

It seemed hardly possible that we had made the crossing
in so short a time. There was no time for speculation, how-
ever, for some of our luggage had to be repacked. By now
the porthole showed not only rain, but also dim outlines of
buildings quite close to the ship. The motion of the vessel
subsided and presently ceased. The two sailors reappeared
and began gathering up our belongings. We followed them
out to the deck and down a gangplank, emerging on a large
roofless wharf. The rain had slackened to a drizzle, and a
thick mist disclosed shadowy outlines of tall buildings. Our
luggage was piled in one heap. I clambered up to a perch on
the top of a huge bundle of bedding, and the rest of the family
grouped themselves around the luggage. A number of people
had disembarked, and these, carrying valises or steamer trunks
on their shoulders, walked quickly past us and disappeared.
A whistle blew, the gangplank was removed, and the ship

44 A LOST PARADISE

moved slowly away, soon melting into the pervading mist.
We were quite alone on the eerie wharf.

This, then, was America! At the moment it was decidedly
disappointing. And where was my father's cousin from Pas-
saic? Perhaps he had not heard about our record-breaking
journey. But he had heard, for a man suddenly emerged from
the gloom and with open umbrella in his hand was advancing
on us. My father ran to meet him, and the rest of us waited
breathlessly. Strangely enough, they did not embrace when
they met. They talked long and earnestly. At length, my
father turned and walked slowly toward us, the man right
behind him. My father's face was white. "This is not Amer-
ica!" he at last brought out. "We are in London!"

The effect of this disclosure on my mother was stunning.
Unexpected happenings threw her instantly into a "state," in
which she wept, lamented, and ran the gamut of unbridled
agitation. But she always recovered quickly, her practical
nature reasserting itself automatically to face the challenge
that life perpetually presented to her. Crises were only to be
expected, but their extraordinary frequency in her life put on
them the stamp of naturalness, like rain and snow and the
change of seasons. I was therefore hardly surprised to see her,
a moment after she had extravagantly given vent to her feel-
ings, take charge of the strange situation, brush my father
aside, and ply the stranger with questions. For myself, I was
old enough to appreciate the gravity of our predicament. I
knew that my father had only a few rubles when we left
Russia and that most of these had been spent by the time we
boarded the ship that had now so unceremoniously disgorged
us. Yet, though 1 was very familiar with the name of New
York, I had never heard of London. To be in unknown London
was, in its way, as exciting as to be in the dark interior of
Africa, of which I had heard. I sensed the possibility of ad-
venture in London as, unmindful of the drizzle, I sat elevated

Mr. Harris 45

on our only earthly possessions and followed the course of
my mother's Inquiries.

The man, who spoke in Yiddish, introduced himself as a
representative of a British Immigrant Aid Society, a wholly
charitable organization, whose purpose was to offer aid and
comfort to friendless Jews arriving from foreign ports. He
showed no surprise at our situation. He told us that we were
the victims of unscrupulous travel agents in Russia who had
sold us tickets to London while charging us for passage to
New York. Ours was not an unusual case, and his society
was prepared to look after us temporarily until it could lo-
cate our friends or relatives or fellow townsmen now residing
in London. He then left us for a while and soon returned with
a man trundling a pushcart. Our belongings were loaded on
the cart and, led by the Samaritan, we left the wharf. (It was
Tilbury Dock, I learned later.) After walking through miles
of ghostly streets, we reached the dwelling that had been
prepared for us or for unfortunates like us.

Before the man from the society left us, he explained the
British monetary system to my mother and then put ten
shillings in her hand. This sum, he assured her, would take
care of us for a week in a section of London where food could
be bought cheaply on the streets, practically at one's doorstep.
Indeed, our dead-end street, as well as the entire district
around it, proved to be one great outdoor market.

Our accommodations were two rooms in a two-story, dingy
old house in a dead-end street off Commercial Road. Some
rickety chairs, a table, two iron cots, and a small kerosene
stove were all the furnishings. My mother, after disposing our
belongings to the best practical advantage around our apart-
ment, went out shopping. She returned with bread, herring,
sugar, tea, and cottage cheese, and with grave doubts about
the integrity of our benefactor, whose optimistic evaluation
of the cost of living in London's ghetto she had discovered to

46 A LOST PARADISE

be misleading* Things were, in fact, twice as dear as they
were at home. From there on, to the end of their lives, Vitebsk
remained "home" to my parents.

Notwithstanding the heartening, though limited, generosity
of the society, our situation was decidedly depressing. That
night, when I was supposed to be asleep, I heard my father
and mother talking long and earnestly about our future. My
father had little to suggest that was constructive. He spoke a
good deal about "home," contrasting its remembered joys
with the bleak, hopeless prospect now facing us. But my
mother, as usual, put her whole mind to a consideration of
ways and means for ameliorating our lot. "We can't just sit
here, talking of home and waiting for something to happen,"
she said. "We must do something. Do we know anyone in
London?" The query was obviously rhetorical, for my father
did not deign to answer. "Don't tell me nobody" she cried.
"There must be somebody. They say London is the largest
city in the world, much bigger than New York. I don't know
how many thousands live in London. So there must be some-
body here from Vitebsk. . . . Think hard Maybe you'll
remember. . . . There must have been somebody who went-
not to America!"

There was a long silence and then my father said hesitat-
ingly: "I seem to remember I'm not sure- Aunt Rivka's
son-in-law's brother. But you wouldn't know him. He left
Ula and went to live in Vitebsk. It was years before we were
married. Yes, now I recall he left Vitebsk about twenty-
five years ago."

My mother's voice sounded tense as she interrupted him:
"Did he go to London?" My father was not sure. "Well, did
he go to America?" my mother persisted. On that point my
father was certain. He distinctly remembered that America
was definitely the place the man had not gone to. "Well
then," my mother cried triumphantly, "if he did not go to
America, where else could he have gone to?"

Mr. Harris 47

My father ventured a suggestion: "Africa, maybe?" the
absurdity of which my mother implied in her challenge: "And
what would he be doing in Africa?" (Africa symbolized for
my mother the extreme of strangeness or remoteness.
"Africa," she would say by way of putting the finishing
touch to a picture of faraway desolation, "where pepper
grows!" For many years I believed that the spice could
flourish only in some desolate area of the dark continent.)

"Well," my mother went on, "there can be no doubt about
it, Rivka's cousin, or whatever he was, must have gone to
London. The question is how to find him. What was his
name?"

My father gave this some thought, for it was a long time
before he answered. "I think it was was it? yes, of course.
Now it comes back to me. Horowitz, that's it his name was
Horowitz!"

My mother greeted this information with the elation of
one who, after frantic cogitation, remembers a magic pass-
word. "Well," she said, "now we must find Horowitz.
Didn't he have a first name?"

My father couldn't remember the first name, but wished
to know how she proposed to locate Mr. Horowitz in a city
the size of London. My mother could not say at the moment,
but she thought the man from the society would help find him.

Within a few days he came to see how we were getting
along, and she told him the little she knew about Mr. Horo-
witz. He said that he would do what he could. Several days
later he reported to her that none of the Horowitzes he had
been able to locate was the one she wanted. That evening I
again overheard her and Father engaging in deep discussion.

"Let's see," she began, "Mr. Horowitz left Vitebsk about
twenty-five years ago, you say. How old could he have been
then?"

My father hazarded twenty-three or twenty-five. "That
would make him now let's see," and my mother made a

48 A LOST PARADISE

rapid calculation, "about forty-eight or fifty, wouldn't it?
What did he look like? But of course he'd be quite changed
after all these years. Was he heavy-like? Thin? What color
hair? Eyes?"

My father's information on all these points was incon-
clusive, but that didn't faze my mother.

"It doesn't matter," she declared, "and anyway it can't be
helped. Now let's see what did Mr. Horowitz do in
Vitebsk?"

Mr. Horowitz had worked at odd jobs in Vitebsk. No clue
there.

"Did he have any money?" It appeared he couldn't have
had.

"Well then," my mother said, "since he had no money
when he came here, he must have been obliged to go to work!"

At this point my father advanced the dreadful possibility
that, for all he knew, the man might be dead. This my mother
brushed aside as irrelevant to the execution of the plan she
had by now formulated in her mind.

"Now, as a Jew, Horowitz would naturally live and work
among Jews, wouldn't he?" My father agreed, and my mother
pushed on to the heart of her plan. "People go to work in the
early morning and they return home in the evening, don't
they? Now, if Mr. Horowitz is alive- of course he's alive, a
man of fifty and if he is working you agree that he is
working then he will be going to work at seven o'clock
tomorrow morning somewhere in this very part of London,
and at seven at night he will be returning to his home some-
where around here!"

I could hear her rise and walk across the room with deci-
sion, as if she had definitely disposed of the vexing question
of our future in London.

"And now let's get some sleep," she said.

My mother spent the next day exploring the Whitcchapel
district, asking questions of storekeepers and pedestrians,

Mr. Harris 49

watching the flow of traffic in the larger thoroughfares, and
noting when and where it was heaviest. That night she dis-
cussed her strategy with my father, or rather she apprised him
of it, and on the following morning at seven they took up
positions on each side of Commercial Road at its junction with
Leman Street.

"Watch out for men who look about fifty a little younger
or a little older," my mother told my father as they separated
to take up their posts.

I accompanied them for a lark, for the discovery of Mr.
Horowitz seemed a very remote possibility even to an im-
aginative child of six. When, an hour later, the stream of
pedestrians had thinned out to a trickle, and my father, re-
linquishing his post, crossed over to join my mother for their
return home, I felt that the quixotic adventure definitely had
been proved a failure. My father had accosted only one likely
prospect, and my mother had seen none who might conceiv-
ably be Mr. Horowitz. We walked home in silence, and I
wondered what new scheme my mother would evolve now that
Mr. Horowitz had proved nonexistent. But toward nightfall,
as I played in our street with a new-found friend, I saw my
parents leave the house and walk toward Whitechapel. I
abandoned my playmate and joined them. At the corner of
Commercial Road and Leman Street, they again took up their
positions of the morning, and again for an hour scrutinized
the hurrying passers-by, again without success.

Once my mother ran after a middle-aged man, caught him
by his sleeve, and said: "Excuse me, you look so familiar. Did
you ever live in Russia?"

The man, obviously astonished, stopped in his tracks,
looked my mother over, and said: "Why, yes."

My mother then led him aside, away from the stream of fast-
moving men and women. "Your name isn't Horowitz?"
The man shook his head and asked why. My mother made
some hurried excuse, and he went on his way.

50 A LOST PARADISE

My father had accosted no one. At eight o'clock we again
returned home. My mother busied herself with the evening
meal while my father read his Talmud.

Days and weeks went by. Each Monday the man from the
Aid Society appeared and placed ten shillings in my mother's
hand. Our meals seemed never to vary. It was always herring,
potatoes, bread, cheese, and tea. My father found himself a
synagogue of the proper denomination, where he went three
times a day, and my mother was endlessly engaged in shop-
ping, cooking, scrubbing, and washing. But every morning
and evening except Saturdays and Sundays they would both
be at their posts in the London ghetto, patiently scanning the
figures and faces of men hurrying by, occasionally stopping
one and after a brief colloquy turning away to search for other
possibilities. I soon lost all interest in the game and joined
my parents only when I had nothing better to do.

A letter had been dispatched to our cousin in Passaic, ap-
prising him of our recent misfortune and present predicament,
and a reply came back expressing sympathy for our plight,
but containing no constructive suggestions for its alleviation.
In truth, there was nothing the man could do to help us, as
it was unlikely that he possessed or would wish to part with
a sum large enough to pay our passage to America. Further-
more, his kinship to us was not close enough to justify any
great sacrifice on his part. There were certain things one could
reasonably expect of a first cousin, but not of a second. The
moral obligations of relatives were well defined among us, and
people did only what they were expected to do. He did, how-
ever, urge us to "look around" and keep him posted. His
offer of a temporary home in Passaic still stood.

As she grew more familiar with the neighborhood of her
search, and to avoid being thought queer by the people in the
shops, who were sure to wonder at her persistence, my mother
shifted her operations to adjoining streets and avenues. She
was "working" one of these side streets one evening. 1 had

Mr. Harris 51

come along for the walk. The crowds had tapered off, and
my father was signaling us from the opposite corner that it
was time to go home. At the same moment a man in a gray
bowler hat brushed past us. My mother looked at him and
shot out a restraining hand. I had seen this happen many
times during the past six weeks, and I tugged at her skirts,
impatient to be off. But my mother's routine question had
already stopped the man.

"Yes," he replied, "I come from Russia. Why do you ask?"

My mother disengaged her skirt from my grasp and went
very close to the man. "Excuse me," she persisted, "perhaps
from Vitebsk?"

The man regarded her wonderingly. "Why, yes," he said,
"I come from Vitebsk."

This was, indeed, progress of a sort, and I began to share
the excitement that I read in my mother's face. Many men
she had accosted had acknowledged Russia as their birthplace,
but none had even spoken the magic name of our native city.
Still, any number of Vitebsk men might be living in London.
Why should this man in the bowler hat be the one man we
were seeking? Before I could wonder about him any further,
my mother had breathlessly put to him her final question.

"Why, no," he answered quickly, "my name is Harris."
He started on, but after a few steps he suddenly turned and
came back to her. "As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "it
'was Horowitz. But that was a long time ago, in Vitebsk.
When I came to London, I changed it to Harris. Why do you
ask?"

Without a word my mother clutched him to her heart. The
man endured the embrace with equanimity, for my mother
was then in her early thirties and quite handsome. My father,
hoping that the miracle had finally occurred, now crossed the
street on the run and, without seeking to know more, shoved
my mother aside and in his turn embraced Mr. Harris. I ran
home alone to be the first to bear the good news to my

52 A LOST PARADISE

brothers and sisters. A few minutes later my parents arrived
with the now radiant Mr. Harris in tow. For Mr. Harris, on
learning our identity and the nature and extent of the hunt
that had been conducted for him, marveled at my mother's
ingenuity and persistence, and expressed himself as very
pleased to find himself so suddenly provided with a set of
kinsfolk, "ready to wear, so to speak," he said.

After listening to a long and quite detailed recital of our
unfortunate history since we had left Russia, Mr. Harris at
my mother's urging told us of his life in London. Fortified
with a glass of tea, he began his tale with his five shillings a
week apprenticeship in a hat factory off Whitechapel Road
twenty-five years before, and finished it with his present
ownership of the selfsame establishment, now double in size
and importance. He was a widower and childless, and it was
only because he had no home ties that he kept workman's
hours. Otherwise, the chances of his being on the streets in
the morning and evening rush hours would have been slim
indeed, for truth compelled him to confess that he was very
well off and was in a position to retire altogether from work if
he chose. He regarded the evening's encounter as providential
for all concerned, but more especially for him. For, while he
had many friends in London, he had thus far not discovered
any relations.

Before another hour had gone by, Mr. Harris had planned
our future. My older brothers would be employed in his hat
factory; he would find jobs for my sisters; and the younger
children would be sent to school. He would also find an apart-
ment suited to so large a family as ours, and my mother was
to serve notice on the Aid Society that we should henceforth
be self-supporting. But at the moment Mr. Harris desired
to show the menfolk his factory, which was near by. I begged
hard to be taken along, and after our frugal supper, which Mr.
Harris shared, and, for a rich man, appeared, much to our
surprise, to enjoy, the four males of our family followed him

Mr. Harris 53

out of the house and through a maze of streets and alleys to
his factory.

This was an imposing structure, two stories high. It was
shut for the night, but Mr. Harris rang a bell and a night
watchman let us in. We were led through rooms full of sewing
machines, and then into Mr. Harris's private office, a large
room with a magnificent rolltop desk and showcases with
glass doors lined against a wall, in them a most bewildering
variety of caps and hats. Mr. Harris enjoyed our pleasure in
what we saw and insisted on fitting us all out with headgear
of our own choosing as his initial gift to the family. My
father and brothers expressed a preference for top hats, or
stovepipes, as Mr. Harris jokingly called them. I was urged
to choose a velvet cap with ear muffs to match, and indeed
the one showed me looked so rich and sleek that I was
tempted to accept it. But the desire to be considered grown-up
was strong within me, and I pleaded so hard for a "stovepipe"
that Mr. Harris at last gave way and we left the shop uni-
formly outfitted. There had been some difficulty in fitting a
head so small as mine, and the smallest "stovepipe" in the
shop, which became mine, fell short of the snugness with
which the other hats rested on the heads of my father and
brothers. But though I could have felt more comfortable, I was
proud of my hat.

On our way home, people in the streets stopped to stare
at us, and as we turned into Black Lane, I prayed that my
mother and sisters would be looking out of the windows and
would see us as we marched in single file down the narrow
sidewalk. Sure enough, they were looking out of windows and
could hardly believe their eyes when they saw us. So ended
in triumph a day that began as fruitlessly as all those we had
doggedly lived through since being so unceremoniously
dumped out on Tilbury Dock.

Mr. Harris was as good as his word in all respects. A few
days after our memorable encounter, he moved us into a fine

54 A LOST PARADISE

four-room apartment that had gaslight and running water. My
brothers were employed in the hat factory and my sisters
were put to work in a tobacconist's shop close to the factory.
There, with the aid of a little machine, they inserted tobacco
into previously manufactured little paper casings. The younger
children were sent to school. Every Sunday we dined en
masse at Mr. Harris's sumptuous apartment on the fifth and
top story of a vast building. It was great fun to rush up the
Iron stairways and wait on the top landing for the rest of the
family, especially for my parents, who climbed slowly and
paused for breath at each landing. Mr. Harris made my father
and mother take the head and foot of the table, and behaved
like a guest in his own home. We were waited on by an
oldish woman in a flowered apron, who carried the dishes
around to each of us in turn. We were expected to help
ourselves with a large spoon and fork placed in the dishes for
that purpose.

Our family prospered rapidly. Every payday those of us
who were gainfully employed brought their pay envelopes
unopened to my mother, and the kitchen table would be piled
high with shillings and pence. New denominations, like florins
and crowns, began to appear, and sometimes a paper bank-
note. Mr. Harris was solely responsible for all this, and
perhaps for much more that I knew nothing about.

All this time my father kept up his correspondence with his
New Jersey relative. The more prosperous and settled we
became, the more importunate grew the letters from America.
My mother and the children would have been content to re-
main permanently in London. For myself, I soon spoke Eng-
lish of a sort and I acquired numerous playmates, with whom
I roamed the Whitechapel district and even on one occasion
penetrated the dazzlingly spotless West End and walked on
London Bridge. Fortunately, I did not then realize that the
bridge was the subject of a nursery rhyme I had recently
learned, which began: "Land-the-britches falling down," or

Mr. Harris 55

I should have thought twice before trusting myself to so
precarious a structure. My English, though progressing, was
inadequate for the elucidation of the many phrases and songs
I learned on the streets. These I spoke and sang glibly, but
it was many years before I discovered their meaning. Thus,
the ballad that I sang beginning with "As I walked along the
base below with the undipendent-te," I had no trouble in
identifying many years after as the opening line of "The
Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo." But I never suc-
ceeded in deciphering or identifying another one of my
favorites which went:

Do'wn the street,
A leeza can a quoia,
Fl c ve-and-t e wenty batsa gata there,

and its lilting refrain:

me fait) me,

iddy vei dy backoo see,
Lefty, righdy,
Backee, seiddy,
Me-me-me-me-Me!

One time my sister and I followed a monster parade for
many hours. There were brass bands and magnificently cos-
tumed men on horseback, and the streets for miles were lined
with people who applauded the pageant and especially an open
carriage in which sat a plump old lady. Could she have been
Victoria, the event the celebration of her Golden Jubilee?

My father's growing disposition to regard London as a
way-station to America was, toward the end of the year's
residence, fortified by the deleterious effect of the recurrent
fogs on his health. In the light of modern psychiatry, the
neuralgia that he suffered could have been brought on by his
impatience to continue his interrupted journey. At any rate,
my mother grew alarmed at his frequent indispositions.

56 A LOST PARADISE

Mr. Harris was duly consulted, and regretfully acquiesced in
our contemplated departure, voicing a readiness to facilitate it.
Our move, in fact, depended on his co-operation. From the
first, my father had managed to impress on my mother the
necessity of saving a good part of the family's earnings, which
he entrusted each week to Mr. Harris for safe keeping. But
the amount, while sizable, was not sufficient to defray the
cost of the journey to New York. Without waiting to be
asked, Mr. Harris offered a loan to make up the difference
and to tide us over the first few months in America. To avoid
a possible recurrence of the chicanery that had set us down in
London, our benefactor himself purchased the steamship
tickets, assuring us the while that such double-dealing was
foreign to the nature of the English.

A little over a year after we left Russia, we sailed from
Liverpool on the S.S. St. Paul, a vessel imposing enough to
negotiate the "great waters" my grandfather had poetically
feared. Mr. Harris accompanied us on the train from London,
saw to our baggage, and gave us as a parting gift a large
basket of fruit with colored silk ribbons. We all stood at the
steerage deck rail as the steamer pulled away. My mother's
eyes were full of tears as she waved her handkerchief. My
father, my brothers, and I waved our toppers as Mr. Harris
and London faded in the distance.

CHAPTER THREE

e on Stanton Street

T

A HE

.HE St. Paul made a record run of less than
seven days from Liverpool to New York. The trip was smooth
and pleasant, though our quarters, which we shared with
about two dozen other passengers, were somewhat cramped.
This room, in which we could do little but sleep, was designed
like a large egg crate, with three tiers of cubicles for bunks
and with just enough room in the center to move about before
climbing in and out of our beds. The ship featured a kosher
kitchen for the orthodox Jewish passengers, but my father
had doubts about its authenticity, and both he and my mother
subsisted on oranges and the kuchlech my mother had baked in
preparation for the journey. As a result of earnest representa-
tions by my mother, the children were permitted by paternal
dispensation to eat the ship's food if they chose. But the
dining-saloon was stuffy and airless, and the only food we

58 A LOST PARADISE

could keep down comfortably was raw herring and bread.
Besides, our parents' show of super-orthodoxy gave us, not-
withstanding their sanction, an uncomfortable feeling of
guilt, and we debated amorig ourselves the possibility of being
overtaken by divine retribution on the Day of Atonement.
Although it was a good ten weeks to Yom Kippur, it was not
to be supposed that God would fail to remember our semi-
transgression on the day when He decides the fate of every
living soul.

The voyage introduced us to an olfactory phenomenon
known to all transatlantic travelers of those days as the smell
of "ship." This pervasive, insidious odor, a distillation of
bilge and a number of less identifiable putrescences, settled on
one's person, clothes, and luggage and stayed there forever,
impervious to changes of habitat, clothing, and the cleansing
agents available to the poor. It was many years before I
realized that only steerage passengers smelled of "ship."
Until then I assumed that all persons, rich or poor, traveling
on ships became, as a matter of course, victims of this afflic-
tion. And, like all afflictions that are protracted, it lost its
terrors through familiarity. One expected arrivals from Europe
to smell of "ship." So much so that on visits to the homes of
neighbors, one could tell at once by the pervading smell of
"ship" that they were entertaining guests from abroad.

Smells, in general, played an important part in our lives.
Not an unpleasant part, I recall, but one that in its way made
life a little easier, serving for identification of persons, their
habits and social position, perhaps as clues to character and
occupation. Everything and everybody had a smell. Some
smells were generic and impersonal, others particular, like
the leitmotivs in the music dramas of Richard Wagner. And
just as the introduction of a leitmotiv warns the listener that
the personage it represents is about to appear, so the insinu-
ation of a smell in a room usually heralded the approach of
the person who had become identified with it. Immigrants,

Life on Stanton Street 59

however, could not so be identified Individually for at least a
year or two after their arrival, as their own odors were over-
powered by and absorbed into the more exigent smell of
"ship."

Old people had, in general, an acrid smell, and old men in-
variably smelled of snuff. Young people and children merely
smelled unwashed. We knew that we too would smell of
snuff when we grew old. That was in the nature of things.
Life was stern and realistic, and the conditions it imposed
were not subject to question or criticism. After taking snuff
it was quite proper for people to blow their noses without
the interposition of a handkerchief. In rooms not graced with
spittoons, what was more natural than to spit on the floor! It
was natural, though not desirable, for children to have lice
in their hair and for grown-ups to harbor them in the seams of
their clothing and underwear. Beds and bedding and all over-
stuffed furniture were infested with bedbugs. The pests were
periodically hunted and exterminated; but their presence was
not considered a disgrace, and they shared with poverty and
disease the status of divine visitation. "What brand of bedbug
powder do you use?" was a natural query when housewives
met on the street or entertained one another with tea and
kuchlech. Presumably the question was also asked by house-
wives on the West Side. The world was most probably the
same for everybody. We knew that rich people had more
rooms, better food and clothing, and easier lives than the
poor; but we had no reason to believe that their lot was
otherwise different, or that they were exempt from what we
believed to be universal afflictions. On the visible world, half
of which we knew first-hand, and the other half of which we
could only imagine, there were, for us, certain unchangeable
phenomena: children were dirty and were obliged to scratch
their heads; mothers were unkempt and slatternly; every-
body, old and young, had teeth pulled regularly, so that
middle-aged and old people had few if any teeth; a great

60 A LOST PARADISE

many children died young; everybody slept in underwear;
parents always quarreled; mothers were generally indulgent
to their children, but fathers either kept aloof or were brutal
to them. And, of course, everyone over fourteen years of age
was employed in gainful labor. Not before the age of fourteen
could one obtain one's working papers. It took a considerable
amount of experience In the realm of what Is now called "the
underprivileged" before I could collate these observations,
draw my conclusions, and, by extension, relate the picture
thus built up to that part of the world which lay outside my
knowledge and beyond my reach.

When the St. Paul reached New York, we were met by my
father's second cousin, the junk-dealer. This kinsman's name
was Gold. It had been Goldstein, but on his arrival in America
he had thus shortened It at the friendly suggestion of an im-
migration officer who was passing on the fitness of arriving
aliens to enter the United States. Now, on the pier, our cousin
urged my father to perform a similar operation on our own
"useless" family name, as he termed it, suggesting "Chot" as
a desirable abbreviation. My father rejected the idea on the
ground that he failed to see the need for any alteration of any
name. In an effort to convince him, Mr. Gold recalled how
he, too, had resisted at first, but had been unable to deny the
appositeness of the immigration officer's question: "What
good is Stein to you?" He now demanded to be told what
possible good the last two syllables of our name could be to
us in a country so dynamic and so impatient of nonessentials
as America. "For here," Mr. Gold said triumphantly and
we heard enunciated for the first time the then celebrated and
popular slogan "Time is money." My father, however, re-
mained unconvinced, and, much to Mr. Gold's displeasure, we
retained what he always regarded an impossible, noncom-
mercial name. Many years later my three brothers arrived
independently at the junk-dealer's philosophy of nomenclature.
Indeed, they went farther than Mr. Gold by discarding al-

Life on Stanton Street 61

together our family name, each one adopting a terse, one-
syllable, indigenous, respectable, and consequently absolutely
commercial surname. Louis, the youngest of the three, chose
White; Solomon, the next in age, adopted Chase; and Albert,
the eldest, who all his life meticulously observed the entire
ritual of Jewish orthodoxy, selected the name of Church.

Although Passaic fell short of being the Eden that Mr. Gold
had promised in his letters to my father, it proved to be a
lively town, with horse-cars, interesting shops, and sidewalks
paved with tar, which had a pleasant smell, and became so soft
on very hot days that one's heels sank into it. Our cousin
lived on the outskirts of the city in an area inhabited only by
Jews. He occupied one floor of a two-story frame house. On
the second floor there were two vacant rooms, which, with
one room in Mr. Gold's apartment, were assigned to us. I
do not recall in what manner the ten of us were disposed
in this arrangement, but not many days elapsed before
Mrs. Gold's exuberant show of hospitality was replaced by an
impatience with our presence which could not be lost on any
of us. On the other hand, there was no visible alteration in
Mr. Gold's interest in us and in his solicitude for our future,
though it soon was evident that he was unable to fulfill his
promises of work for my brothers and sisters and a teaching
position in a cheder for my father. To the end of our stay he
kept reiterating his faith in the commercial possibilities of
"Birdie Kahndie," his exotic mispronunciation of Bergen
County. His pride in this region was immense, and he would
prophesy that in ten years' time "Birdie Kahndie" would
outstrip in population and wealth any territory of its size in
the United States.

He seemed oblivious of the rancid smells of the long
stretches of milky swampland in the vicinity of his home, and
impervious to the bite of the large mosquitoes that filled the
air the moment the sun went down. But I was not. And soon
after we settled in "Birdie Kahndie" I developed malaria and

62 A LOST PARADISE

walked about weakly, feeling queasy and running slight but
uncomfortable temperatures. Mr. Gold took me to a dispen-
sary in Passaic, where a doctor prescribed quinine and a
change of climate. As there was nothing now to keep us in
Passaic except Mr. Gold's unconvincing prognostications of a
speedy change for the better in our fortunes, my health became
a consideration of importance. And in a council held by the
heads of both families it was decided with Mr. Gold dis-
senting that we should try the climate of New York as an
antidote to my malaria, at the same time testing the reputation
of the metropolis as a place of great opportunity for the enter-
prising alien.

Enthusiastically shepherded by Mrs. Gold, my mother
journeyed to New York and rented a suitable apartment in
Stanton Street, on the lower East Side, one block from the
Bowery. Into this we moved one very hot morning in late
August. Right in front of our house a large black horse lay
dead in the gutter. He must have been there for some time,
for the stench was dreadful, and flies, large and small, covered
every inch of the carcass and hovered in swarms over it.
Later in the day I looked out the window and saw several
small boys astride the animal, engaged in skinning it with
their pocket knives. Their sport was presently interrupted,
however, by the arrival of a large van for the removal of the
horse. This complicated operation attracted all the children
In the neighborhood, who watched the departure of the beast
with regret.

My health improved slowly in Stanton Street. Once a week
I walked to a dispensary at Second Avenue and Fourteenth
Street and received, gratis, a dose of quinine. My mother ac-
companied me there, for she, too, was unwell, frequently
announcing in a dramatic tone of voice that her heart had
stopped beating. I was not unduly alarmed, for I was at the
time unaware of the crucial function of this organ. Nor did
the doctor at the dispensary regard my mother's condition

Life on Stanton Street 63

with the seriousness she thought it demanded. He would
laugh at her extravagant claims and prescribe Hoffmann's
drops. A few drops of this magic liquid on a lump of sugar
had the effect of instantly reviving my mother's dormant
heart.

The public schools opened in September. I was to enter the
second grade of the school nearest my home, a large red-brick
building on Houston Street. Preparations for the fall term
could be observed everywhere. The shops on Stanton Street
were displaying every necessity for the resumption of learn-
ing. All manner of boys' clothing, including ravishing sailor
suits with whistle attached and smart brown knee-length
gabardine overcoats, were on view behind the plate-glass
windows. The candy stores had the most Interesting display
of articles used in the classroom. The number and variety of
pencil boxes alone took one's breath away. There seemed to
be no limit to the complexity of pencil boxes. Beginning with
the simple oblong box, plain or lacquered, they evolved into
two- and three-storied structures with secret compartments.
Prices ranged from seven cents to the fantastic sum of a
dollar. The pencil box was, admittedly, a necessity; but a
box costing more than ten cents became a symbol of social
superiority. The very few who could afford dollar boxes be-
came the acknowledged leaders of their classes. A highly
prized peek into the lavish interiors of their pencil boxes was
vouchsafed only as a reward for services promised or per-
formed.

It was out of the question for me to begin school without a
pencil box and some other less important "supplies" that
beckoned through the window of the candy store on our
block. Those others ranged from plain and colored blotters to
school bags in the shape of knapsacks. Though I pleaded hard
for a two-storied pencil box costing a quarter, my mother
bought me a plain, oblong casket with a sliding top for ten
cents. When our shopping was done, my supplies consisted

64 A LOST PARADISE

of the pencil box, four writing pads at a penny each, and a
set of colored blotters costing a nickel, the last wrung from
my reluctant parent after I had conjured up a classroom crisis
in which the teacher would call for a show of blotters and I
would be the only pupil unable to produce any. My mother
had a horror of nonconformity, a failing I early spotted and
often exploited.

On the first Monday in September my mother took me and
my scanty supplies to school, where I was enrolled and given
a desk and a seat in a large classroom. The teacher, a gray-
haired, middle-aged lady, told us to call her Miss Murphy.
I wondered if she meant to imply that this was to be her name
in class and that at home she was called something else. The
name sounded alien and therefore forbidding, and might have
been chosen to emphasize the natural barrier between teacher
and pupil. She was obviously a pagan a Chreestch our name
for any non-Jew. Miss Murphy read out our last names from
a long paper in front of her, and we raised our hands to signify
our presence. She was severely distant, and her impersonal
attitude, added to the formality of being called by our last
names, cast a chill on the classroom. Soon one began to long
for the sound of one's first name as for an endearment that
would, at a stroke, establish a human relationship between
oneself and Miss Murphy. But it was not to be. By the fol-
lowing morning Miss Murphy, having already memorized
the surnames of her entire class, called the roll without once
referring to her paper.

She then went to the blackboard and in beautiful script
wrote "Catt" and, looking over the sea of heads in front of
her, said: "Something is wrong with the spelling of this word.
Katzenelenbogen, stand up and tell me what is wrong." A
small, skinny boy rose in the back of the room and said
something in an indistinct voice. "Speak up, Katzenelen-
bogen!" Miss Murphy sharply commanded. My heart went
out to Katzenelenbogen in his ordeal. I was conscious of the

Life on Stanton Street 65

disparity between the long and important-sounding name and
the frailty and insignificance of its possessor. Miss Murphy,
however, could not be blamed for adhering to a long-established
practice in all public schools. Even in kindergarten, I learned,
four- and five-year-olds were called by their last names. The
practice was inevitably adopted by the children among them-
selves in their out-of-school hours, of course with suitable
abbreviations of the longer names, and often with prefatory,
highly descriptive adjectives.

Notwithstanding Miss Murphy's frigidity, she soon com-
manded our interest and respect, and we made good progress
in reading and spelling. For some mysterious reason, we were
more interested in spelling outside the classroom than in it.
In the classroom we were content to plod along with the
elementary vocabulary of McGuffefs Eclectic Second Reader.
But at recess time in the yard, and on the street on our way
home, we challenged one another to spell long and complicated
words whose meaning we didn't know and never dreamt to
inquire. Words such as "combustible" and "Mississippi" were
somehow in the air. How the craze got started I never knew.
But walking home one afternoon, I accidentally collided with
a boy I didn't know. Instead of the usual, belligerent "Hey!
Can't you look where you're going?" I was peremptorily
commanded to spell "combustible." I couldn't, never having
heard the word before; whereupon the boy rattled off "co-
mb-us-ti-bl-e" with incredible speed and triumphantly went
on his way. It was not long before I, too, learned to spell the
fascinating word and others equally difficult and provocative.
Soon I could rattle off "M-i-double-ess-i-double-ess-i-double-
p-i" as rapidly as any child in the neighborhood.

The words in McGuffey's, though simpler, lacked the lovely
sibilance and long, musical line of those we challenged one
another with on the streets. In consequence, they were more
difficult to learn to spell. But they did have the advantage of
intelligibility, and as strung together in McGuffey's Reader

66 A LOST PARADISE

they told connected, highly interesting stories. McGuffey's
took the reader into town and country, but I was delighted
to discover that, like myself, it had a strong bias for the latter.
I was much taken with a story in the reader called "The
Town Mouse and the Country Mouse," which presented a
dialogue between two rodents residing respectively in a
metropolis and on a farm. The city dweller, who spoke first,
advanced apparently incontrovertible arguments on behalf of
urban life, stressing especially the prevalence of food left
carelessly lying around by humans and the plenitude of holes
and crevices and other avenues of escape from cats and
destructive agents in general. But when he confidently rested
his case, the country mouse, a timid and gentle creature,
spoke up, painting an idyllic picture of life in the open, gently
emphasizing the delicious leftovers in the country kitchen, the
sweet smell of hay in the barn, the coziness of attics in the
winter, the feeling of space and freedom, and, above all, the
security offered by fields and forests. The issue was settled
after the country mouse had returned home, when the town
mouse, overconfident of urban security, fell a prey to the
machinations of a cat, who devoured him with the sophisti-
cated relish peculiar to city felines. Miss Murphy, who read
aloud to us, appeared neither interested in nor moved by the
McGuffey stories. She read without nuances and exhibited no
emotion. Completely indifferent to the music of poetry, she
would recite a line like the exquisite. "How would I like to go
up in a Swing, Up in the air so blue!" in a cold, earthbound
voice, look up from her book, and say: "Plotkin, spell
'swing.' " Yet she was an excellent disciplinarian, and our
class speedily gained a reputation for good spelling.

She also conceived and put into effect a new system for the
handling of hats and overcoats which saved time and enabled
us to begin our studies in the mornings a few minutes after
nine and to be out on the street soon after the bell rang at
three. The system was simplicity itself. As each boy entered

Life on Stanton Street 67

the class, he deposited his hat and coat on a designated spot
on the floor on either side of the blackboard. At nine o'clock,
at noon, at one, and at three, two boys selected for their
strength and stamina would station themselves in front of the
class to right and left of the room. Each of the two would
pick up a hat and coat from the heap in front of him, hold it
aloft for recognition. The owner would then announce his
name and open wide his arms to receive the garments flung
in his direction. For a few minutes the air would be filled with
hurtling coats, scarves, hats, and, on rainy or snowy days,
rubbers and rubber boots. But it offered the pleasures of a
humorous game, what with the uncertain aim of the throwers
and the possibility of being knocked over by a too speedily
propelled overcoat. For this innovation and her general effi-
ciency Miss Murphy was soon liked and even admired.

Miss Murphy lived in Brooklyn, an hour's journey by the
Grand Street horse-car to the East River, the ferry to cross
it, and another horse-car on the other side. She therefore al-
ways brought her lunch with her. This consisted, much to our
surprise, of one sandwich of jam, the bread remarkably white
and of the texture of cotton, and one thin slice of sponge cake,
each wrapped in tissue paper, and both done up in brown
wrapping paper and tied with cord. It seemed to all of us
rather meager nourishment for a strong-minded, powerful
woman. But I had heard it said that Christians in general ate
sparingly, the women especially showing a marked distaste
for food. The men, on the other hand, were partial to drink,
as could be verified by visiting the Bowery around the corner
from the street I lived on. When she dismissed her class at
noon, Miss Murphy would ask one of her pupils to run out
and buy her a bottle of milk, and we soon began to regard
this errand as a privilege and a special mark of favor. Yet
she was careful to rotate us, and by the end of the term every
boy in the class had bought her a bottle of milk. She had a
way of saying: "Would you hand me my puhss?" which we

68 A LOST PARADISE

thought elegant. When the pocketbook was handed to her,
she would extract a coin from It delicately with her thumb
and forefinger, the little finger stretched out as if she was
about to bring forth something precious or highly dangerous.
She ate her lunch privately, seated at her desk. Even with no
one to see her, one could be sure that she ate her jam sandwich
with the decorum of Chaucer's "Nonne, a Prioresse," and
"let no morsel from her lippes falle." Incidentally, the sand-
wich was responsible for my first demerit In class, the morn-
ing when Miss Murphy taught us to sing "Columbia, the
jam of the ocean." I thought of Miss Murphy's sandwich and
could not repress a giggle when we sang the opening line with
its stress on the word "jam." Sometimes Miss Murphy
would bring a bunch of violets, which she would place in a
glass of water on her desk. She looked stylish at all times, her
hair in a pompadour, a gold watch pinned on her blouse, a
large, black patent-leather belt around her waist. She was
immaculate. At least twice each day she would remove the
flowers, dip the tips of her fingers In the glass of water, and
wipe them with her handkerchief. So conscious did the class
become of Miss Murphy's fastidiousness that for Christmas
most of her pupils gave her a cake of soap.

Stanton Street was an exciting place in which to live. It was
the shopping center of the neighborhood, and in men's cloth-
Ing it rivaled Hester Street. Perhaps in volume of sales
Hester Street stood supreme; but its garments were in the
main second-hand, while Stanton Street's were quite new.
Furthermore, samples of the clothes on Stanton Street could
be seen in all their chic and splendor on marvelous, lifelike
dummies in the shop windows. One window that held me
spellbound displayed a father with an elaborate mustache,
surrounded by his five sons, ranging in size from an infant to a
young man almost as tall as his parent. Each child wore the
clothes suited to his age. I yearned for the blue sailor suit
with whistle attached on the fourth son, a child of about my

Life on Stanton Street 69

age. It occupied my thoughts and even dreams for years.

Stanton Street had other attractions besides shop windows.
Organ-grinders with monkeys would appear at all hours and
play a varied assortment of music. Through them I learned
many popular songs, but the only one I can now recall is
Sweet Rosie O'Grady. 1 found it a sweet ballad and a tender
declaration of love, notwithstanding its waltz-like rhythm.
The organ-grinders played other tunes of a more serious char-
icter, which, through repetition, I learned to sing, though it
<vas years before I discovered their identity. Among them
^vere the "Miserere" from // Trovatore and "Addio delpassato"
From La Traviata, both of which brought tears to my eyes.
Often I would follow an organ-grinder through many streets
ind so hear the "Miserere" perhaps a dozen times over, never
failing to respond to the somber, inexpressibly sad minor
:hords at the beginning and the noble but equally doleful
nelody in major which comes soon after. I have since won-
iered at Verdi's predilection for the major mode to convey
sadness, and his success in doing the opposite of what all
)ther composers before and after him did.

Stanton Street ended at the Bowery, a block away from the
louse in which I lived. The Bowery was in bad odor with all
:he parents of the neighborhood for a great many reasons,
ill of them concerned with the welfare of the children. The
street was the habitat of drunks and criminals, the latter so
xdd and vicious that they were often more than a match for
:he policemen who attempted to restrain them. Nevertheless,
:he temptation to explore for oneself so infamous a street was
:oo strong to resist. In company with a playmate or two for
protection in case of assault, I frequently roamed the Bowery
is far north as Eighth Street and south to Chatham Square.
[t is true that nothing noteworthy ever happened, but the din
>f the elevated trains passing overhead, their engines belching
smoke and sending showers of sparks and cinders down on
:he wagons and pedestrians below, the noise coming through

JO A LOST PARADISE

the swinging doors of the many saloons, the spectacle of
drunkards swaying and teetering and talking loudly to them-
selves, combined to give us a delicious feeling of daring and
fear. Sometimes the Bowery invaded Stanton Street in the
persons of derelict women we called "Mary Sugar Bums."
The poor, dirty, ragged creatures would come reeling into
our block, cursing and swearing, and we would run after them,
calling out "Mary Sugar Bum! Mary Sugar Bum!" and they
would threaten us grotesquely with their fists and lunge at us
futilely when we came too close.

There was always excitement on Stanton Street from the
time school let out until supper time, and for an hour or two
between that meal and bedtime. Something was always hap-
pening, and our attention was continually being shifted from
one excitement to another. "What's-a-matter?" was a per-
petual query as we were attracted by a sudden frantic exodus
from a tenement, the clang of an ambulance as it drew up in
front of a house, a person desperately running, pursued by a
crowd, a runaway horse and wagon, a policeman forcibly
propelling a drunk and twisting his arm until the wretch
screamed with pain, an altercation through open windows
between next-door neighbors. Occasionally there was the ex-
citement of a Western Union messenger trying to deliver a
telegram and asking the children playing on the street on what
floor its recipient might live, for there were no bells or letter
boxes in the entrance corridors of the tenements on Stanton
Street. The mailman blew a whistle in the downstairs hall and
called out names in a voice loud enough to be heard even on
the fifth floor, and people would come running downstairs to
get their letters.

The arrival of a telegram was a most serious occurrence.
Everybody knew that telegrams were dispatched only to an-
nounce the death of a relative or friend or, at the very least,
a serious illness; and the appearance of the fateful, gray-clad
messenger was sure to draw a crowd. On hearing the name

Life on Stanton Street 7 1

of the addressee, the people would speculate aloud on the
identity of the deceased, and some neighbor might offer to
precede the messenger and tactfully and mercifully prepare
the bereaved for the tidings to follow. "Something terrible
has happened Mrs. Cohen just got a telegram!"

Every day after supper I would beg to be allowed to play
for a while in front of the house, where I could be seen from
our windows and, at the proper time, summoned to bed.
Between sundown and evening, on fair days, Stanton Street
had an enchantment of its own. The dying sun benevolently
lacquered the garish red-brick buildings, softly highlighting a
window, a cornice, or a doorway. We would play on the side-
walks and in the gutter until the air grew dark and we could
barely tell who was who. Then the lamplighter would emerge
from the Bowery, carrying his lighted stick in one hand and
a small ladder in the other. In the light of the gas lamps we
played leapfrog over the empty milk cans in front of the
grocery store. Each of us would vault over a single can and
then, if successful, augment the hazard by adding a can for
the next leap. Some of us learned to vault over as many as
seven cans! Or we would play hide-and-go-seek in the dim
vestibules of the tenement houses. We very rarely left off
our play to return home voluntarily. Those of us who were
sought out and induced to go home by mothers or sisters were
fortunate, for the appearance of one's father on the scene
carried with it the certainty of punishment. Fathers, with few
exceptions, were insensitive, brutal, and quick to resort to
force in obtaining obedience.

Mothers, too, frequently resorted to force, but only after
they had exhausted all peaceful means. I would sometimes try
my mother's patience to a degree that drove her to the re-
taliatory use of what sounded like curse words. I suspected
they were not actual words, though, spoken passionately,
they sounded authentic enough. They must have been inven-
tions that would have the force but not the connotation of

72 A LOST PARADISE

curses one could properly call down on persons one didn't love
or wasn't related to, for no one else ever used them and I
never discovered their meaning. "You can go tar-tar-ar-ee!"
my mother would shout wildly at me, as if she were consign-
ing me to the devil. The effect, for the moment, was the same.
For the most part, however, my mother found relief in
rhetorical queries addressed to the heavens, like "What does
he want of me? Does he wish to shorten my life?" Or she
would hurl an epithet and cannily negate it in the same breath,
like "The cholera should seize him not!" My father wasted
no time with me when by chance he came into the room at
such critical moments. "Let me handle him," he would say
grimly as he placed himself between us. "Skinning alive, that's
what he needs," and he would undo his belt preparatory to
carrying out what he thought I needed. My mother would
then interfere and make excuses for me and the half-with-
drawn belt would be reluctantly returned to its place. But on
one occasion the two acted in concert against me, thus bring-
ing about the first great disillusionment of my life.

I had disobeyed strict orders not to go outdoors barefoot
on a cold rainy afternoon. I returned several hours later with
every expectation of being scolded by my mother or punished
by my father if he happened to be home. I found both of
them at home, but my apprehensions vanished when I saw
no anger or resentment in their faces. On the contrary, my
father asked me in a pleasant way if I had had a good time,
the while he busied himself undoing the knots in a clothesline.
I said I had and went to the window to signal my friends on
the street that everything was all right, when suddenly I was
seized from behind and felt my mother's arms hard around
me. A second later my father had bound my legs and hands
with the clothesline and dragged me with shame to tell!
my mother's help into the kitchen, where he tied me fast to
a leg of the sink. My father's deceptive behavior did not
surprise me; I could expect it of him. But my mother's perfidy

Life on Stanton Street 73

shattered In one Instant my previously unquestioned trust in
her love for me. My refuge and security were gone. My world
had toppled around me. If such things could be, my only
wish was to die. An hour later I was released, but my free-
dom, while physically gratifying, could not restore the faith
I had lost. It was weeks before I would permit my mother to
touch me.

We lived in Stanton Street for about a year. My father, not
having the capital to open a cheder of his own, taught Hebrew
to a few boys in their homes. This brought in very little
money. Besides, the inattention of the pupils, who could not
keep their eyes on the Bible, but kept staring out of the
window, brought on my father's old headaches. Furthermore,
he came up against a newfangled idea among parents that
teachers were not to administer corporal punishment. It had
not been so in the old country. And my father would rather
give up a pupil than' relinquish so necessary and important a
prerogative. My mother reminded him that beggars could not
be choosers, but he insisted that they could; they could choose
starvation! At any rate, he required nothing, or very little, for
himself. All he needed, he said, was a piece of bread and
herring and a roof over his head.

Nevertheless, he usually ate what we all did. Friday nights
he would expect and plainly relish a full ceremonial dinner of
several courses, beginning with a stuffed fish, the head of
which was reserved for him, and of which he ate all but the
eyes and the more resistant bones. There would then follow
sweet and sour meat roasted to a point of delicious disinte-
gration and flanked by roast potatoes saturated in gravy, and
limp, candied carrots. Soup would come last, and my father
would help himself to two brimful plates from the large bowl
placed in the center of the table. He was inordinately fond of
calf s-foot jelly, which my mother would cook on Fridays and
put out on the fire escape to cool. On Saturday after Minche
(late afternoon prayers) it would be served, preceded by a

74 A LOST PARADISE

little whisky, as a delicate collation for him and a fellow
worshipper he generally brought home with him. All in all,
he ate so very well that it was difficult to believe his declara-
tions of austerity.

My oldest brother, Albert, had married and had gone to live
in Waterbury, Connecticut, where he practiced carpeptry
and undertook small repair jobs. He had talked my brother
Solomon, next to him in age, into going with him, with a view
to their forming a partnership as builders and contractors. My
brother Louis, aged fourteen, got himself a job as a presser's
assistant in a tailor shop in the vicinity of Stanton Street. My
three older sisters found work in a cigarette factory. My
younger sister hadn't yet reached the kindergarten age. She
played around the house and got in my mother's way, and
when sent to play in the street, frequently fell down the
stairs. Neighbors would pick her up and carry her upstairs,
and my mother would have to drop her work and apply
poultices and bandages and still her cries, thus defeating the
purpose for which she had been relegated to the streets. After
school hours I would help out my mother for an hour or so
by ''minding" the unstable child.

Though most of our family were employed, their aggregate
earnings provided the barest subsistence for us. It is true that
on Friday nights we invariably had a feast, but that repast was
made possible only by economy and deprivation during the
rest of the week. I was generally hungry, and I always
invested the penny I infrequently got from my mother in
"broken cake" at the grocery store. Sweet biscuits in that
era were sold, on the East Side at any rate, from large barrels,
and "broken cake" was the name for the bits and splinters of
biscuits remaining in the bottom when all of the unfractured
dainties had been removed. We longed, of course, for the
biscuits in their original unharmed condition. Yet "broken
cake" had a flavor of its own, owing to the very circumstance
that caused its degradation. Lying crushed and chipped under

Life on Stanton Street 75

the weight of its unharmed fellows above, it assimilated a
variety of aromas, so that the flavor of a piece of "broken
cake" offered a concentration of all the flavors of all the
biscuits in the barrel. I preferred "broken cake" to candy at
"Cheap Charlie's," where one could buy ten chocolate-
coated walnuts for a penny.

Every street had a "Cheap Charlie." I used to wonder at
the singularity of the candy-store business being exclusively
in the hands of men of the same name. These candy stores had
an extraordinary attraction for children because of the personal
attitude of Charlie to his young customers. This was an even
more potent lure than the advertised cheapness of Charlie's
wares, which we accepted on faith without inquiry or com-
parison. Charlie was human and understanding, and was not
above entering into the problems of his patrons. Thus it was
possible, when one did not happen to have a penny at the
moment, to confide in Charlie and, on a promise to pay up at
the first opportunity, to leave the store with the chocolate-
covered walnuts in a paper bag. The groceryman was less
understanding. I suspected that my mother was responsible
for his insistence on prompt payment for "broken cake." Nor
did I have the heart to blame her. Her own relations with the
man were often delicate. I myself had witnessed humiliating
scenes in which he categorically refused to give her further
credit. But my mother always managed to persuade him to
change his mind, alleging an imminent favorable turn of
events for us which would promptly take care of all our
financial indebtedness.

In school the time for promotion drew near and a great
uneasiness swept the class. The fear of being "left back"
gripped all but a very few boys who were obviously so
brilliant that it was early conceded by the rest of us, as well as
by themselves, that there would be no question about their
promotion. Being "left back" was definitely a dishonor. But
not because it was a reflection on one's scholarship. Scholar-

76 A LOST PARADISE

ship was, in fact, suspect, and the "smart" boys who got A's
or "stars" became the objects of ribbing and were likely to
suffer ostracism. Being "left back" doomed one to loneliness,
the sudden disruption of friendships, and a separation from the
Intrigues, scandals, pleasantries, and feeling of solidarity of a
long-established class. Long before the dreaded day arrived
we could see Miss Murphy working on the "promotion list"
during our study periods. We tried hard to guess at the names
she so carefully wrote out by watching the movements of her
pen. The crossing of a "t" or the dotting of an "i" could be a
clue in that it ruled out a great many names that did not con-
tain those letters. The boys who occupied desks in the first
row were sometimes able to catch a name she was writing:
a boy would raise his hand for permission to "leave the room,"
as our trips to the water closets were politely called, and in
making for the door would sidle near Miss Murphy's desk
and attempt a swift look at the promotion list. But Miss
Murphy was aware of these stratagems and did what she
could to defeat them. When she left the room, even for a
moment, she would lock the list in her desk.

On promotion day the class arrived all scrubbed and neat,
with hair combed and definitely parted, the labor of mothers
who cherished a wild hope that in case of doubt an extra bit of
cleanliness might tip the scales. Miss Murphy gave no indica-
tion that she was aware of anything unusual in our appearance.
Neither by word nor by look did she indicate that she had
sealed the fate of fifty boys in the document that now reposed
in her desk. Tense, nervous, and dispirited, we went through
our usual morning routine. At ten o'clock the monitors left
their seats and opened the windows halfway with long poles
while the class rose and exercised their arms and heads with
Miss Murphy leading and commanding "Inspire! Expire!"
the class noisily breathing in and out in response. At a quarter
to twelve the room suddenly became unaccountably still.
Miss Murphy seated herself by her desk, opened it, and drew

Life on Stanton Street 77

out the promotion list. I could see the red line down the
middle of the page, looking like a thin blood barrier, which
separated the names on either side. Miss Murphy, before
addressing herself to the list, was exasperatingly deliberate in
tidying the top of her desk, arranging her pencils in a row,
and moving the water glass with its little bouquet of flowers
to one side. At last she was ready.

"I shall now read the promotion list," she announced. "As
your name is called, rise and stand in the aisle. Those whose
names are not called will remain seated." This seemed to
foreshadow doom for many. Classes were known to have
been promoted en masse. Clearly ours would not be one of
these. The class held its breath as Miss Murphy again gave
her attention to the list. "Abramowitz," Miss Murphy in-
toned, and Abramowitz got to his feet precipitately and stood
in the aisle. "Abrams, Abramson, Askenasy." The B's seemed
endless, but at last Miss Murphy said: "Chasmanovitch."
There was a pause. "Chisel" followed "Chasmanovitch" in
the daily roll call. What about Chisel? Chisel's fate did not
concern me. Ordinarily I would have wished him well. But if
Chisel was not on the list my name should come next. Why
did Miss Murphy pause? What could the hesitation portend
for me? I waited for the blow. Should Miss Murphy now
pronounce the name of Cohen, then both Chisel and I had
been "left back." My eyes isolated Miss Murphy's lips as
they began to form a name. "Chisel!" Miss Murphy pro-
nounced, and the wretch (his desk was in front of mine), who
had slumped down in his seat in despair, now looked about
him incredulously, like a criminal who had received a last-
minute reprieve. Slowly he got up and shifted over into the
aisle. I continued to stare at Miss Murphy's lips. There was
another pause, and then I heard my name, clear and loud. I
stepped into the aisle in a daze and stood there for a long
time, experiencing no sensation of any kind. It was like the
suspension of consciousness. Then all at once I was aware of

78 A LOST PARADISE

many boys standing in the aisles and Miss Murphy was calling
out "Rabinowitz, Redin, Rickin, Sokolov, Spingold, Stein-
berg, Teitelbaum, Ulansky, Wissotzky, Yarmolovsky,
Zeitlin." It was all over. Three wretched boys still sat:
Katzenelenbogen, Gershowitz, and Vlacheck. Katzenelen-
bogen had covered his face with his hands and was crying
softly. Gershowitz, his face white, stared straight in front of
him. Vlacheck alone showed no signs of defeat. He had been
"left back" twice before, and he smiled and leered as if he
had expected nothing else and rather gloried in continuing to
belong to a minority.

We promoted boys, at a command from Miss Murphy,
closed ranks and were marched into an adjacent classroom,
where we found four dejected boys, the leftovers of our new
grade. Miss Murphy made us a formal farewell address and
turned us over to Miss Applebaum, our new teacher. Then
the bell rang and we marched into the street and scattered
quickly to our homes, for once not loitering to talk and plan,
in our eagerness to carry the good news to our families.

I was now a third-grader. My promotion had given me a
new confidence in myself, and I looked forward to an inter-
esting term with my old schoolmates under the tutelage of
Miss Applebaum. But before a week had passed, my parents
decided, most unaccountably, I thought, to leave Stanton
Street and move to distant East Broadway, a neighborhood I
had never even seen. In consequence, I obtained a transfer to
P.S. No. 2 on Henry, between Rutgers and Market streets.
Except for the fact that I was assigned to the third grade in
the new school, I was in all other respects in the position of a
Katzenelenbogen, Gershowitz, or Vlacheck, for my class-
mates were all new to me and I had to set about making new
friends.

East Broadway was a wide thoroughfare. Our apartment
on the third floor of a house on the corner of Rutgers Street
overlooked a large square, or rather oblong, adorned by a large

Life on Stanton Street 79

black marble fountain, rising in several tiers. I could sense the
possibilities of the neighborhood. For, besides the fountain,
all the buildings on the west side of East Broadway, extending
from Essex to Jefferson streets, had been razed for the
eventual construction of a park, and the debris offered the
very terrain for possible war games, with rival armies march-
ing and counter-marching and striving to gain certain desirable
heights. It would be at least a year before the place could be
cleared and the park begun, and I foresaw many late after-
noons and evenings, not to speak of Sundays, devoted to
maneuvers, with myself in some kind of leading role, perhaps
as captain of a powerful striking force. The potentialities of
the place were innumerable. Looking up Rutgers Street to-
ward the east, there was the river in the distance, with boats
of every description plying up and down. Huge warehouses
near the water's edge were forever discharging crates and
barrels with mysterious contents, and at night one could sit
on the large empty trucks parked on the wharves and watch
the river and the lights from Brooklyn across it.

"Within walking distance were splendors like Brooklyn
Bridge, the City Hall, and the Post Office. The mysterious
alleys of Chinatown were no more than half a mile away.
Certainly East Broadway, at its meeting with Rutgers Square,
was the center of the universe, and I looked forward to an
exciting and fruitful existence on it. But the prospect of a
strange school, a new teacher, and new schoolmates was un-
pleasant, and I would gladly have relinquished the future
delights of East Broadway for the old routine and associations
of Stanton Street.

CHAPTER FOUR

Fountain

T

JSLHE

.HE windows of our three-room railroad flat
looked down on the big fountain in Rutgers Square, a huge
plaza into which flowed four important thoroughfares: East
Broadway, Canal Street, Rutgers Street, and Essex Street.
The fountain was a tapering, eye-filling, circular structure
surrounded by two semicircular stone benches. It had a broad
basin four or five feet above the base, and two graduated
smaller basins in tiers above it. The stone benches were al-
ways occupied. In the morning they held mothers and babies
and women shoppers tired out from bargain-hunting, the
pursuit of which necessitated visiting distant markets, some-
times a mile from their homes. In the late afternoon, school-
children took over the fountain, sailing paper boats in the
lowest basin and playing tag around the benches. In the
evening, after a hot day, old people sat around to catch what

The Fountain 81

tenuous breezes might hover over the square. The old people
seldom stayed long, and they were succeeded by young
couples who had been walking hand-in-hand in the square,
waiting for a chance to sit down in the proximity promised by
the crowded benches around the fountain.

Presumably the small tenements could not accommodate the
old people and the young at the same time. Privacy in the
home was practically unknown. The average apartment
consisted of three rooms: a kitchen, a parlor, and a doorless
and windowless bedroom between. The parlor became a
sleeping-room at night. So did the kitchen when families were
unusually large. Perhaps because of the accessibility of the
light refreshment that it was customary to offer guests, the
kitchen rather than the parlor became the living-room until
bedtime, and all social life centered in it. Made comparatively
presentable after a long day of cooking, eating, and the
washing of dishes and laundry, it was the scene of formal
calls at our house and of the visits of friends and prospective
suitors. However, the etiquette of courting was strict. A
transplantation from the old country, it had well-defined
prohibitions known to everyone. Chaperonage was an ac-
knowledged institution, and the chaperon could even be, if
necessary, a child. When a gentleman offered to call on one
of my sisters on a night when I was to be the only other
member of the family at home, my mother, before leaving the
house, would openly caution me to remain in the kitchen until
the visitor had taken his leave. On the other hand, it was
considered proper for young people to go walking together,
attend concerts and balls and the theater. But in such cases the
parents were to be apprised beforehand of the extent and
duration of the walk or the nature of the entertainment. It
therefore turned out, ironically enough, that privacy could be
had only in public. The streets in the evening were thick with
promenading couples, and the benches around the fountain and
in Jackson Street Park, and the empty trucks lined up at the

82 A LOST PARADISE

river front, were filled with lovers who had no other place to
meet. Boys of my age were required to be at home around
ten at night. Those of us who were still in the streets at that
hour might decide perversely to hang around the fountain
with the intent of embarrassing the lovers on the benches.
We would sneak up on them from behind and imitate the
amorous confidences we imagined they exchanged. "Darling!"
we would whisper, "I love you more than the world. Will you
marry me?" And one of us would answer mincingly: "Yes,
dear, I will marry you and we will have many children,"
the daring afterthought being intended to convey the abnor-
mally advanced state of our sophistication.

The conversation of lovers I did overhear was on the more
serious plane of politics, religion, literature, and the theater.
The majority of these young people were immigrants, and
their language was still Yiddish, with an admixture of Rus-
sian, Polish, Romanian, German, and English words and
phrases. They worked in dark, fetid sweatshops, in airless
attics and cellars. They attended night schools and read
liberal, socialist, or anarchist newspapers and magazines.
Politically and ideologically they were at odds with their
parents and grandparents, who leaned through habit and
tradition toward conservatism and paternalism. In the minds of
the older people, unionism or criticism of constituted au-
thority and resistance to it invariably led to atheism, or at
least to a slackness in the observance of the laws and tradi-
tions of religious orthodoxy. Yet, though their expressed
opinions were iconoclastic, the actual behavior of the young
people was strictly, though unconsciously, in the tradition of
their elders.

One of the topics in the air in that period was the double
standard of morality. The Russian author Chernishevsky
had written a novel on the subject, and the book, though not
new, was enjoying a vogue on the East Side. What is to be
Done? was its provocative title. It posed for its heroine and,

The Fountain 83

by extension, to all women, the question of acceptance or
rejection of the hitherto unchallenged promiscuity of males.
The author himself took the most serious view of the license
enjoyed by men, and pleaded through the mouth of his
heroine for a single standard for both sexes. As a final gesture
of protest the heroine committed suicide, but I don't remem-
ber what effect this act of desperation had on the question
involved. I do remember that What is to be Done? was ear-
nestly debated in my own house, on the sidewalks, and on the
benches by the Rutgers Square fountain, and that sympathy
was generally on the side of the heroine and the author. The
male arguments against a single standard appeared to lack
force, and almost always capitulated to the sterner moral and
spiritual convictions of the opposition. Perhaps the lack of
privacy contributed to the high moral tone of the East Side
intellectuals. What is to be Done? may have helped to sublimate
this deprivation, as did the moralistic Russian and Yiddish
literature that formed the chief intellectual fare of those days.
"The wages of sin is death," Tolstoy had inscribed under the
title of Anna Karenina, and no one ever questioned the stern
judgment of the author on his beautiful and erring heroine.
Infidelity, promiscuity, and all other sexual aberrations were
held to be incompatible with the life of the spirit and the
intellect in a serious world where young men and women
labored ten and twelve hours a day merely to keep body and
soul together. In these circles love was held to be primarily
intellectual. Young people met in classrooms, in night schools,
at lectures on politics, economics, and literature, at plays
and at concerts, and seemed to be drawn to one another by a
community of interests rather than by chemical affinity. The
ignorant, the idlers, and loafers of both sexes managed to
achieve vulgar and sordid relations, and there were frequent
betrayals and sex scandals. But those attachments which had
an intellectual basis generally led to marriage. A cousin of
ours who worked in a sweatshop and studied dentistry at

84 A LOST PARADISE

night was introduced to a girl at a concert and ball In Py-
thagoras Hall on East Broadway. While dancing with him the
girl confessed to a passion for Dostoievsky's Crime and
Punishment, the very book he admired most in the world. They
fell in love, and on his receiving his dentist's diploma two
years later, they married. Love was, indeed, a serious and
lofty matter among the young men and women in Rutgers
Square.

In summer the fountain in Rutgers Square played all day,
and in the late afternoon and on Sundays the more adven-
turous boys of the neighborhood would strip and dive into
the lowest basin. This was prohibited by law, and a warning
to that effect was painted on the basin's rim. One of us would
be delegated to stand guard over the heap of discarded pants,
shirts, underwear, shoes, and stockings and to keep an eye
open for policemen. Espying one, the lookout would let out a
piercing "Cheese it the cops!" grab a handful of garments,
and make for a certain prearranged meeting-place. The
swimmers would scramble out of the basin and scatter in all
directions. This was also prearranged to confuse our pursuer,
who, not being quick enough in deciding which direction to
take, would generally stand helpless for the time it took the
boys to make good their escape. A few minutes later we
would all have made our way, dripping but elated, to some
dark tenement vestibule, or have descended to the cellar
workshop and living-quarters of some friendly ragpicker or
shoemaker, whither our sentry had preceded us with our
clothes. And sometime later we would emerge, singly, of
course, to allay suspicion, and saunter nonchalantly back to
the fountain, perhaps under the puzzled scrutiny of the very
cop who had caused our flight.

Better swimming was to be had in the river a few blocks
east of the fountain. There it was perfectly legal to dive off
the docks provided one wore one's underwear. On really hot

The Fountain 85

days we repaired to the waterfront, but we preferred the
fountain because of its risks.

The law also frowned on gangs. For that reason it behooved
one to belong to a gang. I applied for admission to the East
Broadwayers soon after we moved into the neighborhood, and
after submitting to a series of physical tortures to test my
powers of endurance, I was accepted and solemnly installed
as a member. The East Broadwayers was a loose association
of young residents of a well-defined area. Their professed aim
was to detest all outlying gangs whose forces were numeri-
cally comparable to their own, and to dedicate themselves
practically to the harassment and, ideally, to the complete
destruction of the others. Rival gangs of approximately equal
man-power delivered ultimatums to one another and met
openly in battle on their home grounds or on the enemy's
terrain, the choice of battlefield being the acknowledged
prerogative of the challenger. With sticks and stones and
whatever else was at hand for weapons, the battle would often
last from after school to past supper time, when the armies
would disintegrate upon the advent of worried relations, who
would collar and bear off large contingents of fighters, in-
cluding, perhaps, the intrepid leaders themselves.

Every 'Street had its gang, but the exigencies of geography
necessitated alliances among gangs of contiguous streets. The
East Broadwayers joined up with the Jefferson and Madison
Streeters and the Rutgers Streeters and operated as a solid
block against associated gangs residing in more distant
neighborhoods. Our chief enemies were the combined forces
of the Cherry, Pike, and Montgomery Streeters, though
sometimes powerful gangs from the remote purlieus of
Brooklyn Bridge or the Grand Street waterfront conducted
swift raids on the East Broadwayers and retreated hastily
before we could summon the aid of our allies. In these
lightning skirmishes some of us were so conspicuously

86 A LOST PARADISE

mauled that we feared additional punishment at home and
consequently remained in the streets long after bedtime,
laving our wounds in the dirty waters of the fountain and
inventing plausible excuses to account for our injuries. When
our wounds looked as if they might become serious, we re-
paired, escorted by an honor guard, to the Gouverneur Street
Hospital, where we were bandaged neatly and sometimes
outfitted with impressive arm-slings. We then made our way
home, conscious of our importance, followed at a respectful
distance by admiring comrades.

Gang laws prohibited members of rival gangs from passing
through each other's territory. Strange faces aroused suspi-
cion, and it was mandatory for an East Broadwayer to accost
any boy he did not know and put the question: "What
Streeter?" To incur punishment, the stranger did not even
have to belong to a rival gang. It was enough if he lived on an
enemy street. This was so well known that boys would take
to their heels without answering the fateful query, and so
frequently make their escape. To avoid unpleasantness, boys
whose shortest way to school lay through forbidden territory
were obliged to make lengthy detours.

Aside from the hazard of gang warfare, there was also the
hazard of racial and nationalistic enmity. Cherry Street was
completely Irish and Catholic, while the neighborhood of
East Broadway and Rutgers Square was predominantly
Jewish. Being numerically superior, we felt no antagonism
for the non-Jewish in our midst, rather looking upon them
with the friendly contempt one normally felt for goyim. An
Irish family lived in a rear apartment on our floor. They
were an unusually dirty group, the parents much given to
drunkenness and quarreling. Yet our relations were cordial,
and my mother and her Christian neighbor would exchange
lengthy visits, though neither understood a word of the other's
language.

I, however, longed to see for myself the forbidden, solidly

The Fountain 87

Christian territory of Cherry Street, and one Saturday morn-
ing I entered the street and walked, nervous and apprehensive,
for several blocks without molestation. At the corner of
Montgomery Street two boys leaning against a lamppost
looked closely at me as I passed them. Trying hard to repress
any signs of fear, I walked on. They left their lamppost and
walked behind me. Suddenly they spurted ahead and barred
my way. I said: "Wha's a matter?" and one of them countered
with "What Streeter?" "Grand Streeter," I lied. The Grand
and the Cherry Streeters, I knew, had recently concluded a
mutual-assistance pact. This seemed to satisfy my questioner.
But his friend now took another tack. "Hey!" he said, looking
me over carefully. "Are you a sheeny?" "Me?" I said,
summoning a wretched smile. "No! I'm a Chreestch." I
had now silenced my second tormentor. "Well, I gotta go," I
hazarded breezily, and started to walk. "Wait a minute," the
first one said, grabbing me by the arm. "Let's see if you're a
Chreestch." I knew what he meant. I broke loose from his
hold and started running as fast as I could, the two after me.
Fear gave me the speed to outdistance them, and presently my
feet were on friendly territory and my pursuers dared go no
farther. The story of my adventure and escape, embellished
with some highly imaginative details, was speedily incor-
porated into the oral collection of the heroic exploits of the
East Broadwayers.

The days in summer and winter were crowded with inci-
dents, amusing, soul-satisfying, perilous, or adventurous (at
the very least, one could find satisfaction in just being an
onlooker) . There were gang wars to be fought, policemen to
annoy and outwit, and sentimental couples to be teased and
ridiculed. Standing unobserved at one's window, one could
focus a burning-glass on the face of a person resting on the
stone bench of the fountain and relish his annoyance and anger
as he tried helplessly to locate his tormentor. From the same
vantage point, one could let down a weight attached to a long

88 A LOST PARADISE

string, conk the head of a passer-by, and draw up the missile
before the victim could look around for the offender; or,
with the aid of an accomplice stationed on the curb, stretch a
string head-high across the sidewalk, which, unseen by some
unsuspecting pedestrian, would lift his straw hat or derby
from his head and send it rolling down the street. There were
the great games of leave-e-o, prisoner's base, and one-o'-cat
to be played, the last limitlessly peripatetic, so that one might
start to play on East Broadway and wind up, hours later, on
the Bowery. There were ambulances to be run after and
horse-cars to hang on to unobserved by the conductor. If
one was on intimate terms with a currier in a livery stable,
one could sit bareback astride a horse and ride through the
streets. Something was constantly happening which one had
to repair to the spot to see at first hand. People were being
knocked down by horse-cars. There were altercations on
every street, often ending in blows. The changing of street-
car horses at certain termini was a spectacle well worth a
walk of a mile. One could run after an ambulance with a
view to being in a position to give an eyewitness account of an
accident to one's comrades. There were parades to be fol-
lowed, also organ-grinders, bums, and itinerant sellers of
cure-alls, who would assemble a crowd in a moment, deliver a
stream of seemingly sensible, yet strangely incomprehensible,
oratory, quickly dispose of some wares, and suddenly move
on. There was Chinatown to be explored. Familiarity could
not dispel the delicious fear of a walk through Mott and Pell
streets or curb one's speculation on what went on behind the
bamboo curtains in the dark interiors of dimly lit shops, or,
for that matter, in the inscrutable heads of the pigtailed
Chinamen who shuffled along on the narrow sidewalks or sat
in doorways, smoking pipes and cigarettes. No young boy in
his senses would face Chinatown alone. We always went in
twos or larger groups. And when we entered a shop to
purchase lichee nuts, one of us always remained outside to

The Fountain 89

raise an alarm in the not Improbable event of an Oriental
attempt to kidnap us and mark us out either for lustful murder
or for something less immediate but more dreadful, known to
us vaguely as "the white-slave trade."

On election nights, there were bonfires to watch and
perhaps assist in making. Fires broke out constantly in all
seasons, and the air was seldom free from the clang of the
fire engines, the shrieks of the siren, and the clatter of the
horses on the cobblestones. Following the fire engines could
conceivably occupy all one's leisure time. I found the water-
front fires in winter the most gratifying, for the warehouses
were large and their contents inflammable, and an entire
block of buildings could be counted on to go up in smoke
before the firemen gained control. An esthetic by-product not
to be underestimated was the lovely spectacle provided by
the freezing of the water from the fire-hoses the moment it
touched the buildings. Not infrequently the fire engines led
directly to one's own house. These fires, whose origin even
children suspected, were generally less interesting, containing
no element of suspense, as all the tenants, acting as if through
some common impulse, had left their homes and were on the
sidewalks by the time the engines drew up. But they were
fires none the less, and necessitated the dragging of miles of
hose into the building and the wielding of hatchets and axes
by the firemen. Often one arrived breathless at a fire only to
find that it had been a "fourjoulahm" (a false alarm). "Four-
joulahms" were held to be the work of criminal-minded
youngsters, who, we were told, were certain to end up in the
electric chair. But if they were criminal-minded, they were
always uncommonly clever in eluding detection. I some-
times thought they were actuated by nothing more evil than a
desire (which I shared) to witness a full turnout of fire
engines. On quiet days I should myself have loved to spread a
"fourjoulahm" Fortunately for me, quiet days were very
rare. Besides, there appeared to be no lack of these criminal-

90 A LOST PARADISE

minded youngsters on the lower East Side. I really was not
needed, for hardly a day passed without the excitement of a
"foiirjwlahm"

Diversions were also available closer to home. One could
spend a profitable afternoon in one's own back yard. The
poles for clotheslines soared five stories in the air. To shinny
up a pole was a feat in itself, and the exhilaration felt on
reaching the top had a quality of its own. Also there was the
sense of danger, not actually felt, but induced by the fears of
the women who watched the ascension from their back
windows and yelled: "Get down, you bum, you loafer! Do
you want to get killed?" A restaurant in the adjoining house
kept its milk cans in our yard. These served for games of
leapfrog and also offered a means of revenge on the proprietor
of the restaurant, a man insensitive to the need of children to
play and make noise. Every time he chased us out of the yard,
we would return at night, pry open his milk cans, and drop
sand and pebbles in them. He (and his clientele as well) must
have also been insensitive to the quality of the milk he was
imbibing and dispensing, for our unsanitary peccadillo was
either never discovered or else ignored.

Tenement roofs offered a series of connected playgrounds.
The element of danger in playing tag on roofs was consider-
able enough to heighten the ordinary excitement of the game.
Cornices were only knee-high. They could hardly be a barrier
to destruction should one, in running to escape the tagger, fail
to have the presence of mind to veer quickly to right or left.
Some buildings were taller than others, thus necessitating a
thrilling drop of ten or twelve feet, and on returning, an
equally exciting scrambling up skylights and chimneys. A
breath-taking hazard was the open air shafts that separated
houses otherwise contiguous. To miss, even by an inch, a
jump over an air shaft meant death, but death did not really
matter. For death was only an academic concept, a word

The Fountain 91

without reality, at worst something that could happen only to
others.

Every variety of adventure was to be had in Rutgers Square
and its environs. Excitement lay in wait at the turn of a street
corner, in the somber hallways, in the windows of shops, in
manure-fragrant stables, in the rubble of demolished buildings,
in the ruins of fire-swept lofts, in open manholes (one could
climb down into them at noon when the men working there
knocked off for lunch) . In the oppressive heat of summer, one
could revel in the deliciously painful sensation of running
barefoot over melting asphalt or stand bravely in the path of a
huge hose the street-cleaners trained on the garbage-strewn,
burning streets. Threatening skies, thunder and lightning,
cloudbursts, sheets of slanting rain that one watched from the
protective vantage of doorways and from behind windows or
boldly went out to meet in the hope that one would be ob-
served and admired all these manifestations of mysterious
power one enjoyed with uneasy delight. Walking barefoot
along the gutters in the rain, with the water gurgling over
one's toes, as it washed over the pebbles in the illustration of a
country scene in a story in McGuffey's Reader, the delicious
feel of wet garments, one's face upturned to the pelting skies
and one's mouth open to catch refreshing drops of rain
these offered untroubled delights. In the late fall, one could
look forward to the week of Succoth, when my father would
construct a shelter close to the row of toilets in the back yard
and cover it with pine branches. Here we would have all our
meals, even on cold days or when it rained. This was decidedly
life in the open! Sitting at supper in the rustic hut, with the
rain leaking through the prickly foliage, gave one a sense of
communion with nature and the elements and, indeed, of
being a member of some close-knit, savage tribe. To pass
from the thatched structure in the yard into Rutgers Square
was an instant transition from barbarism to civilization.

92 A LOST PARADISE

In winter the rim of the big basin of the fountain was
coated with ice, and I could walk on it gingerly, balancing
myself with my hands like a man on a tightrope, to the ad-
miration of my little sister, who watched me from our win-
dow across the street. One day 1 slipped in the act. She saw
me fall and raised an alarm, and my mother rushed out and
carried me into the house. The accident left a scar on my
eyelid which for some years I could point to as a proof of my
recklessness and daring. A few of the well-to-do boys (the
sons of doctors) owned sleds, which they agreed to share with
us on pain of being expelled from the East Broadwayers. The
first snowfall always arrived on Thanksgiving Day (or so it
seems now), and the time not spent in school was taken up in
snowball fights and in making snowmen and building fortifi-
cations, enormous in size and elaborately constructed for de-
fense. After successfully withstanding an attack that lasted till
supper time, it was pleasant to be at home at night, lie on the
warm floor face down near the stove in the kitchen, and give
oneself up to the delights of McGuffey's Reader. Soon the
sweet, fetid, airless, autointoxicating atmosphere of the over-
heated room would take possession of the senses and one
would slide into a profound sleep, from which even violent
shaking by one's mother and the command to "wake up and
go to sleep" could not pry one loose.

CHAPTER FIVE

Theater

W

f THE:

FHEN I joined my comrades in taunting the
lovers on the benches by the Rutgers Square fountain, I was
also aware, through hearsay, that the world of the theater
on Grand Street and the Bowery was, morally, quite un-
trammeled. Rumors came to my ears of fascinating irregulari-
ties in the lives of the chief personages of the Yiddish stage.
The relish with which these rumors were heard by all but
very old and very orthodox people, who shunned the theater
on principle, proved that the stage was a world apart, one not
subject to the moral code of the world around me. If what one
heard could be believed, actors led as fabulous an existence in
real life as in the theater. For one thing, they took their
marriages lightly. It was said that the rival male stars of
Grand Street and the Bowery negotiated among themselves an
exchange of wives for a limited period, after which interlude

94 A LOST PARADISE

the lawfully wedded couples returned to their former mates.
In this way, over a period of time, the chief protagonists of the
Jewish drama got to know each other very well. For this
reason I determined to be a great actor when I grew up. All
my playmates did too.

On my excursions from Stanton Street to the Bowery I had
often passed the Windsor and Thalia theaters and had been
fascinated by the posters and photographs that adorned their
facades and lobbies. And now, in our house on East Broadway
and from the benches of the fountain, I heard talk of these
theaters and the new one on Grand Street, of the plays per-
formed there and the leading players in them. I longed to
know more about people who each night, and on Saturday and
Sunday afternoons, assumed the guise of a variety of personali-
ties, none of them resembling their own in the least. I learned
to know their faces from their photographs in the Jewish
daily, Der Tog, which my parents read, and from further
examination of the exterior and lobbies of the East Side play-
houses. Long before I saw them in the flesh, I was familiar
with the faces and figures of Bessie Thomashefsky, her even
more famous spouse, Boris, Jacob Adler and his ravishing
wife and fellow Thespian, Sarah, the tragedienne Mrs. K.
Lipzin, the great Kessler, who generally played opposite her,
and the lovely and gentle Bertha Kalich, with whose picture
on a window card I fell in love at first sight.

Among comedians there was the inimitable Mogilewsky,
whose very look as Kooneylemul on a poster would send me
into fits of laughter. Kooneylemul was a lovable character
whose incredible imbecility and side-splitting simplicity and
innocence could not conceal the most generous of natures and a
pathetic belief in the essential goodness of the crass world in
which he lived. The comedy was called The Two Kooncy-
lemuh, but at this distance I can recall the presence of only
one Kooneylemul. I presume the other Kooneylemul was a
pretender (like the false Dimitri in Boris Godunov), who was

The Theater 95

probably unmasked, at the denouement, by the genuine
Kooneylemul. At any rate, Mogilewsky became wholly
Identified with the grotesque, lovable Kooneylemul, and,
along with the stars I have enumerated, became the object of
my veneration.

By chance Hamlet was the very first play I was taken to
see. My two elder sisters had obtained passes for a Sunday
matinee performance at the Grand Street Theater. People
went to the theater only on passes because no one, apparently,
could afford to purchase tickets. At least, I never knew anyone
who bought one. Passes were obtained in several ways. The
most common was to induce a shopkeeper on Grand Street,
Canal Street, or Hester Street to relinquish his allotment by
offering to make an immediate purchase of something in his
shop or promising to make one on the very next payday. The
passes were given out to shopkeepers in exchange for permis-
sion to display window cards advertising the week's attrac-
tions at the theaters. By patronizing and cajoling certain
shopkeepers, my sisters became frequent patrons of the drama.

On this particular Sunday I experienced a craving to imple-
ment my theoretical knowledge of the stage and its players.
Accordingly, I begged to be taken along, and when I was
denied, on the absurd pretext of my extreme youth, I wept and
screamed and barred the door to all egress. My mother
interceding for me, and the time growing late, my oldest
sister relinquished her pass in my favor, and my other sister
and I ran at top speed to the Grand Street Theater. Our passes
called for places in the gallery near the ceiling, and presently
we were seated. For the first time in my life I beheld the
inside of a theater. I sat and gazed in wonder at the vast
interior, rich in ornament, at the dark-red curtain painted to
look like the two halves of a lush, heavy drapery slightly
parted at the bottom, with golden fringes outlining each half,
the whole embraced by a heavy golden rope looped at the
ends. The audience was still arriving, and there appeared to

96 A LOST PARADISE

be some confusion in the seating, for we had no sooner been
been shown to our places than other claimants for our seats
turned up, and on our being asked to show our stubs it was
found that ours and those of the newcomers called for the
same seats. As the less aggressive of the disputants, we
relinquished our seats at the suggestion of the usher and were
led to an unreserved section of the gallery, even closer to the
ceiling.

I could see that similar disturbances were taking place in
every section of the theater. Some people were being pulled
bodily out of their seats. The clamor of the opposing forces
intermittently filled the air or was lost in the even louder
shouts of the candy-, fruit-, and beer-vendors, who did not
hesitate to climb over people in efforts to dispose of their
wares. The noise was at its height when it was suddenly
pierced by the sound of music issuing from the direction of the
stage. I stood up in my seat and, looking down into the abyss
beneath me, saw as if through the wrong end of a telescope
a group of little figures huddled below the stage, playing
instruments of various sorts under the direction of a man
facing them. It was my first encounter with orchestral music,
my first acquaintance with the "Overture." I was to hear this
overture innumerable times during my theatergoing days, for
the pit orchestras were loath to exert themselves unduly, and
their repertoire was, in consequence, a limited one. The
Overture to Zampa or Light Cavalry, I was to discover,
served to ring up the curtain in all theaters and on all plays.
It was Zampa that now struggled to rise above the general din,
and at last succeeded in making itself heard. At its conclusion
there was deafening applause, in which I enthusiastically
joined, for what I heard was lovely indeed. The conductor
bowed to us innumerable times, quite oblivious of the noise of
stamping feet which now began to be heard from every part
of the house. This expression of impatience on the part of the
audience had its effect. The lights suddenly went out, the

The Theater 9,7

curtain alone remaining illuminated by some curious agency.
Cries of "Sh ! Shut up!" and "Sit down!" were exchanged on
all sides. The vendors of fruits and liquids reluctantly re-
treated toward the rear and the house gradually subsided into
comparative silence. The play was about to begin, and I was
overcome with emotion. The leader of the orchestra rapped
for a still greater silence. He signaled his men to begin. A
brassy fanfare rose plangent on the hushed air, and with it the
curtain ascended. But when it was halfway up, it stopped and,
to my distress, would go no farther. But in a moment I had
forgotten the curtain and was lost in the wonders its partial
ascent revealed.

Semidarkness lay like a pall on a structure whose like I had
never before seen. Dim personages in capes brandished swords
and spoke oratoricaily in words I could not quite understand.
Yet I felt certain that momentous events were about to take
place, and I braced myself for the shock of a revelation that
could not long be withheld. And then the event that I both
dreaded and longed to see suddenly took shape as a faint,
sickly yellow light pierced the surrounding gloom and dis-
closed an eerie figure clad in diaphanous armor. I knew only
too well that I was looking at a ghost strangely attired, but
beyond a certainty a ghost. "Gamlet," it said distinctly, in
Yiddish, "I am your father's ghost." And with Hamlet I
listened, with mounting horror, to the piteous tale of fratri-
cide. But how incredibly brave of Hamlet to confront alone a
ghost, no matter how closely related, bathed in unnatural
light, at dead of night! I now began to surmise the intention
of the plot, and could hardly wait for the scene that would put
everything to rights. But the author seemed most reluctant to
bring to a head the conflict he had set in motion at the be-
ginning of the play. I was mystified and annoyed by solilo-
quies that brought matters no nearer to a solution. What was
wrong with Hamlet? Why did he put off, scene after scene,
the execution of the revenge he had at the outset resolved to

98 A LOST PARADISE

take? Why was he so cruel to Miss Kallch, his sweetheart,
whose lovely air of innocent bewilderment broke my heart,
and why, after a show of explosive anger, was he so lenient
with his mother? I should certainly, under similar provocation,
have behaved differently.

A change of scene now disclosed a cemetery and two men
digging a grave. I had never before seen a cemetery or a grave,
but I knew what they were, and they were as horrifying to
behold as a ghost. And now, at last, Hamlet assumed again
the boldness he had shown at his first encounter with the
ghost. He fondled and apostrophized a horrible skull. And
when he heard the shocking news shocking to me, too that
the grave was being dug for the corpse of Miss Kalich, he
leaped into the pit with no signs of fear at all. From that point
on, the author, abandoning his former delaying tactics, moved
swiftly to the denouement, and in the final scene of revenge
and universal carnage he more than atoned for the inexplicable
hesitations that had marred the greater portion of the play.

That night I could hardly sleep, for when I shut my eyes,
the ghost stood before me and beckoned me to follow him;
and to rid myself of his presence I quickly opened my eyes on
the reassuring, dim outlines of the kitchen where I slept. In
the daytime I could dwell on the ghost without fear, but on
coming home from play at night I would run up the three
flights of stairs with a beating heart and burst into the house
like one pursued by a fiend, as indeed I was. A tiny gas-jet
burned on the wall of each landing, and the faint yellow light
it feebly spread was the same that had enveloped the ghost of
Hamlet's father!

I do not recall seeing any other play by Shakespeare in my
play going childhood on the East Side. But adaptations of some
of the more celebrated tragedies were frequently given, and
enjoyed great popularity. In their new guise the plays dealt
with contemporary Jewish life in Russia or America. No one
suspected their source, for the authors gave no hint of their

The Theater 99

indebtedness. The exception was Der Yiddisher Koenig Lear
(The Jewish King Lear), one of Mr. Adler's great vehicles.
While carefully omitting the name of the creator of the non-
Jewish King Lear, the author of The Jewish King Lear hinted,
if only to the cognoscenti, at his obligation to his fellow play-
wright. Der Yeshiva Bocher (The Talmudic Student), another
favorite with East Side playgoers, contained no reference of
any kind to Shakespeare, yet it seemed to me very like Hamlet.
For the Talmudic student, on coming home from his religious
studies afar, found that his beloved father had died, and that
his mother was now married to his late father's brother. The
story pursued its Shakespearean course, greatly to my
astonishment. And when the play was over, I was obliged to
concede that irresolution and inaction were more consistent
with the character of the gentle, retiring student of the
Talmud than with that of the Prince of Denmark. Even so,
Der Yeshiva Bocher was a plain case of plagiarism, and I
wondered whether the author was troubled about his decep-
tion.

Perhaps I enjoyed Der Yiddisher Koenig Lear more than I
did Der Yeshiva Bocher because of its author's implied ac-
knowledgment of his source; and never having seen the
English King Lear, I had nothing to compare it with. This gave
the advantage to the Yiddish version. The Jewish King Lear
was, strangely enough, no king at all, but a wealthy old man
who foolishly (to the disgust of his body-servant, a joking
individual who, nevertheless, was devoted to his master)
parceled out all his worldly goods among his three daughters
and subsequently met the same fate as the legendary Briton.

I can remember one powerful scene that brought down the
curtain and the house. The old man, now quite disillusioned,
had suffered every indignity that the wicked ingenuity of his
two elder daughters and their husbands could contrive. They
had even deprived him of his facetious but devoted retainer
Shamai, who was confined to the kitchen and given degrading

IOO A LOST PARADISE

chores. The climax of the play was now due. I cannot recall

the nature of the final indignity. Could the patriarch have
pleaded for a drink of water and been denied? Whatever it
was, the old man suddenly drew himself up to his full height
and, in a voice of thunder, commanded the housekeeper to
deliver up the keys. This the astonished steward reluctantly
did. And now the old man turned his fury on his daughters and
sons-in-law and a large number of guests who came into the
room.

"Out of my house!" he roared. "Out! Out!" Everyone
fled in astonishment and dismay. He then called for his old
retainer, who, dirty and in rags, came running toward him,
weeping for joy. "Sharnai," the old man cried, and he, too,
wept as he spoke, "good, faithful Shamai, you will serve
me again as of old. Yes, Shamai, I was a fool. I should have
heeded your advice, but I didn't. I trusted in the goodness of
my elder daughters, but I was blind to the goodness of Gol-
dele, my youngest. But I have now returned to my senses. I
have taken everything back. Yes, Shamai, we shall live again
like men. We shall be happy again, Shamai." And the old man
put his arms around Shamai and they clung to each other and
wept loudly and hysterically as the curtain descended. The
audience, too, abandoned all restraint, and people all over the
house cried without shame.

In the last act the Yiddisher Koenig Lear was united with
the gentle Goldele, impersonated by my adored Miss Kalich.
I had now seen Miss Kalich in a number of roles, all of which
exploited her charm, her innocence, and her unearthly beauty.
I thought wildly of becoming an actor so that I might always
be near her and perhaps in time marry her.

Aside from Miss Kalich, the actors I liked best were Mrs.
K. Lipzin, David Kessler, and Jacob P. Adler. Both Kessler
and Adler had the grand manner. They played at will on
people's heartstrings, and audiences wept audibly in their big
moments. Perhaps Kessler was more protean than Adler.

The Theater 101

Like Adler, he could rise to a great climax, but he was also
effective in quieter moments. Yet Adler 's climaxes exceeded
Kessler's in power and virtuosity. His gradual crescendo of
invective and passion in the big scene from Der Yiddisher
Koenig Lear was a shattering experience for an audience.
Kessler, it is true, rose to great heights in the excommunica-
tion scene in Uriel Acosta, when he defied his rabbinical perse-
cutors with passionate scorn. But he lacked the unabashed
grandeur that Adler could summon in heroic roles.

Then, too, Adler was highly effective in seriocomic roles,
in those comedy dramas which portrayed the difficulties of
emigrants from the Old World in becoming adjusted to the
American scene. These plays, known to us as lebensbilder
(portraits from life), offered an equal proportion of laughter
and tears, and were perhaps the most popular type of drama
on the East Side. And, indeed, they were true to life in the
sense that many such adjustments to a new environment were
set in motion with the arrival of every steamer from Europe.
In these plays the pious older people shrank from the un-
orthodox, materialistic, feverish, competitive life in the New
World and insisted on clinging to the religious practices and
the moral code of the world they had left. The young people,
on the other hand, succumbed easily to the blandishments of
their new environment. The inevitable conflict between old
and new, age and youth, orthodoxy and heterodoxy and even,
perhaps, theism, unfolding on the stage, had for the audience
the excitement of recognition, as did also the familiar realistic
touches of incident and character the authors astutely added.

"The baby is crying," Mr. Adler, playing the husband,
remarked to Mrs. Adler, playing the wife in a scene from a
kbensbild whose name I've forgotten. "Well," Mrs. Adler,
busy with recognizable household chores, replied, with a
show of scorn for male ineptitude familiar to every husband
in the audience, "he probably wants topee! Pick him up." The
author had captured a bit of naturalism familiar to everyone.

102 A LOST PARADISE

And Mrs. Adler's tart admonition to her husband, who now
held the baby awkwardly in his arms "Run, or it will be
too late"" set the entire house rocking with laughter and
people commenting: "How true!" or "A real lebensbild, a
slice of life!"

This play dealt with the familiar theme, with Mr. and Mrs.
Adler attempting to hold the balance between Jewish ortho-
doxy, in the person of a pious old grandfather, and rebellion
and Americanization, as represented by their teen-age son and
daughter. In scene after scene the young people scoffed at
religion, at parental and grandparental authority, and at old-
fashioned decorum, proclaiming the advantages of noncon-
formity and insisting on the individual's unobstructed pursuit
of happiness as guaranteed by the Declaration of Independ-
ence. A favorite device of the playwrights of the period was
the frequent repetition of a phrase until it became identified
with the personage whose line it had become. Such phrases
were especially designed to be remembered by audiences,
who would murmur them to themselves after the play,
much as patrons of musical shows, on leaving the theater,
hum snatches of tunes they have been hearing. So the young
daughter would always wind up her defiance of the Old
World and her defense of the New with the memorable
words: "This is the United States of America, thafs all"'' Her
brother, sporting a wing collar, a fancy vest, and a straw hat
with a string attached, interspersed American expressions
in his speech, which were familiar even to the latest arrivals in
New York harbor. "Don'tcha know" concluded every
sentence. And "Go chase yourself," "Business is business,"
and "Time is money" were given out with delightful fre-
quency. Of course, we knew that the young people would get
into trouble, the girl romantically, the youth through his
association with godless, thoroughly Americanized "bums
and loafers," as his grandfather called them. The climax
arrived at the moment of their contrition, and here the author

The Theater 103

revealed his knowledge of the psychology of the human heart.
For in that moment of sincerity the young blade eschewed all
his glib American expressions and spoke exclusively in
"Mamma Loschen" (his native tongue, Yiddish). And his sis-
ter, weeping and calling for understanding and help from the
relations she had so often mocked and derided, now made no
reference to the United States of America or to the unhindered
Pursuit of Happiness guaranteed by the Declaration of
Independence.

Although Miss Kalich reigned supreme in my heart, I was
able to recognize genius and even merit in her rivals. Mrs. K.
Lipzin, appearing without fanfare one day in a tragic work
called Die Schechitte (The Butchery}, quite overwhelmed me
with a display of emotional tension and an outburst of passion
such as I had never before witnessed. Mrs. Lipzin was
neither so young nor so lovely as Miss Kalich, but her sharp
personality easily surmounted these handicaps. The play
seemed especially designed to exploit her peculiar powers of
both understatement and savage fury. In the first act her
father bade her become affianced to an aging, cruel, and
insensitive shochet (rabbinical butcher). Mrs. Lipzin moved
across the stage as in a trance. She spoke only sparingly, but
every word she uttered was heavy with portent. "Will you
have a glass of tea?" she said in a low voice to one of the
characters. It was obvious that she was not thinking of tea at
all at the moment, but of something vastly more significant.
She seemed a quiet and obedient daughter. She voiced no
objections to her elderly suitor, but her self-possession, she
made us feel, was only a triumph of art, for she could not
possibly love the shochet. Thus far the act had been quietly
expository. It was time for the curtain to fall, but nothing of a
dramatic nature had occurred. Mrs. K. Lipzin stood facing a
cupboard, her back to us, a plate in her hand. She was about to
set the table for supper. In a room off-stage her father and the
shochet were completing the business details of the match.

IO4 A LOST PARADISE

That done, the pair came on stage, unseen by Mrs. Lipzin.
"Mazeltov! (Congratulations!)" the father called out. At the
word, Mrs. Lipzin, still with her back to us, stiffened, the

plate dropped from her hand and crashed to the floor, and she
emitted a single, bloodcurdling shriek, then remained silent
and frozen as the curtain fell and rose a dozen times. We
all wildly acclaimed a great new star and a new and powerful
dramatist, whoever he was.

The second act found Mrs. Lipzin married to the shochet,
and once again she underplayed at first, reserving her strength
for what the second curtain might hold in store for her. Her
restraint would have us believe that she had adjusted herself
to a loveless marriage to a lecherous despot. It was made
clear that her husband took a sadistic rather than a professional
interest in ritual butchery. At one point he sharpened a long,
gleaming butcher's knife with an expression of savage antici-
pation. He then left the stage on some pretext, but we knew it
was to leave Mrs. Lipzin alone on the stage for her big
moment. It was not long in coming. Mrs. Lipzin, artfully
simulating unconcern, took up the knife and ran a finger along
the edge to test its sharpness. Then, of a sudden, her body
became rigid. The knife dropped from her hands and she let
out an even more terrifying shriek than at the end of the first
act. And again she stood paralyzed, staring into vacancy,
while the audience cheered.

The third-act curtain, with Mrs. Lipzin again alone on the
stage, was even more powerful, though I do not remember
what exactly motivated that shriek. But the fourth-act curtain
is indelibly printed on my memory. During a great part of the
act the shochet had been unusually irascible, showing his
displeasure with cruel and taunting remarks to his wife. At
length, it having grown late, he retired for the night, slamming
the door after him. Mrs. Lipzin, again left alone, opened her
husband's case of knives, extracted the longest she could find,
ran her finger up and down its edge, and walked rigidly into

The Theater 105

the bedchamber. There ensued a breathless silence. Mrs.
Lipzin emerged from the bedchamber, the knife now blood-
stained still in her hand. She walked calmly to the center
of the stage and stood there, looking into space. Then she
screamed. Of the four screams of that matinee, it was the
most harrowing. Yet the real climax was to follow. Mrs.
Lipzin now pointed the dripping blade toward heaven. "Die
schechitte! Die schechitte !" she cried hoarsely, and broke into
maniacal laughter. The curtain came down. Never had the
Jewish theater witnessed such a triumph.

Playgoing had its lighter side in the musical comedies that
alternated with the tragedies and comedy dramas of the
lebensbild type. It must not be supposed, however, that the
musicals were all sunshine and laughter. They, too, were
founded on the universal theme of the Yiddish stage, the
Russian Jewish immigrant and his difficulties in America.
And while there was plenty of music and dancing and a
humor unblushingly extravagant, pathos was always in the
offing, and a person might have as good a cry at a comedy
with music as at an out-and-out tragedy.

The musicals generally opened with a scene laid in Russia.
A religious festival was being celebrated in ritual song and
dance by devout persons with long earlocks and dressed in
fur-trimmed caps and long satin robes. In due course, the
hosts of the party, an aged rabbi and his wife, were prevailed
on to dance a pas de deux, which they executed with a hearty
agility that belied their years. At one point the dance took a
romantic turn, with the rabbi offering to embrace his wife,
who provokingly eluded his grasp, feigning distaste and
anger. The rabbi, thus repulsed, danced dejectedly alone for a
while. Whereupon the rabbi's wife relented and coquettishly
threw her bandanna handkerchief at him as a sign of renewed
favor. Nothing pleased audiences at musical plays more than
the love-making of old people.

By the second act, the entire cast had been transported to

IO6 A LOST PARADISE

New York, their garments, but not their characters, changed.
Now they recalled nostalgically, in song and dance, the
delights of the simple, pious life they had left behind them.
Yet the new surroundings failed to dampen the rabbi's
amorousness or his wife's flirtatiousness. Younger romance
was now provided by the attraction for each other of a brash,
thoroughly Americanized young woman and a timid young
student of the Talmud, freshly arrived and still clinging to
his earlocks and gabardine. As for comedy, one laughed
incessantly at the attempts of the older characters to learn
English and their ludicrous inability to cope with New World
marvels like illuminating gas, which they tried to shut off by
blowing at it.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomashefsky were the most noted expo-
nents of these musical plays. Their fame as singing comedians
was comparable to the renown enjoyed by the handful of
straight dramatic stars. Mr. Thomashefsky had, in fact,
become the romantic idol of the East Side. Young men strove
to look like him by growing their hair long and combing it
into a pompadour. I thought he was a bit too plump for a
romantic idol, but I had to admit that his voice was "made of
silk," as the papers said. About Mrs. Thomashefsky I had no
reservations whatsoever, though she too was plump. She was
particularly enchanting in a musical play in which she
disguised herself as a young bootblack. Barefoot and in
tatters, a shoeshine box slung over her shoulder, she slouched
around the stage with charming insolence, calling out in
English, "Shine! Shine! A nickel a shine!" It did not take
long for Mr. Thomashefsky, as a rich and pampered young
man about town, to suspect her true sex. At their first meeting,
as she shined his shoes, they sang a duet in which she con-
fessed her admiration for him, and he wished, with all the
pathos of his silken voice, that she were a girl. Copies of this
song, with oval pictures of the celebrated pair on the cover,

The Theater 107

were oo display in the window of Katz's music store on East
Broadway, a few doors from where I lived.

My appetite for the theater was insatiable, and I stopped at
nothing, even theft, to obtain the coveted passes. Several
times I extracted my sister's pass from her pocketbook when
she was out of the room, and by the time the loss was dis-
covered I was well on my way to Grand Street or the Bowery.
I had no preferences and reveled in every variety of play. I
even yearned to attend a performance at Miner's Theater, an
English-speaking playhouse on the Bowery, near the Windsor
and the Thalia. The posters at Miner's advertised an enter-
tainment called Burlesque, and featured plump ladies in
disturbing garments, and funny-looking clowns. As no
Yiddish was spoken at Miner's, its patrons, I assumed, were
necessarily Christians. At any rate, Miner's had no window
cards in the shops, and passes were therefore not available.

At home I indulged in play-acting myself when no one was
around. By the time I had witnessed three performances of
Hamlet with Mr. Kessler as the hero and had become familiar
with the text, I was obliged to revise my original estimate of
Shakespeare as only an intermittently inspired playwright. I
had memorized, "Sein, oder nit Sein? dos is die Kashe!"
("To be, or not to be: that is the question"), which I now
prized for its music, the sense still eluding me; and, pretending
that my long underwear approximated Mr. Kessler's tights,
I would walk thoughtfully up and down the room reciting the
soliloquy and imitating every gesture and intonation I could
recall. I even pronounced the Yiddish words grandiloquently
so that it sounded like German, a practice adopted by the
great actors and actresses when they appeared in such poetic
classics as Hamlet, Medea, and The Robbers of Schiller (it was
long before I found out that The Robbers of Schiller was not
merely the title of the play, but included the name of the
author). Thus, instead of saying "es is ah liegen (it is a lie),"

IO8 A LOST PARADISE

Mr. Kessler would orate ostentatiously, in what we assumed
to be German: "Es 1st eln Leege!" I should also have liked
to do a bit from Medea, but I never saw that tragedy, my
courage having failed me when I heard that that passionate
woman, made desperate by the defection of her peripatetic
lover, proceeded to tear her (and his) children limb from
limb in full view of the audience! I did, however, act out
choice bits of The Two Kooneylemuls in appropriate garb, and
I borrowed an old dress of my mother's and a bread knife
to do Mrs. Lipzin's great murder scene in Die Schechitte.
And slinging a cardboard box over my shoulder, I slouched
around barefoot, and in a feminine falsetto cried: "Shine!
Shine! A nickel a shine!"

CHAPTER SIX

l^Euterpe on Henry Street

o

N MY way to and from Public School No. 2, I
often stopped to listen to the sound of a piano issuing from the
basement of a brownstone house on Henry Street near where
I lived. I was ten years old. I had no knowledge of music
beyond the ability to read the treble clef in the simple part-
songs we were taught at No. 2 and sang on certain occasions
in assembly. But I was able to identify the music issuing from
the basement, either as technical exercises or "pieces." One
or two of my playmates had pianos in their homes, and I got
to know by sight and sound two books of finger exercises
called, respectively, "Beyer" and "Hanon." One could begin
the study of the piano only with Beyer's Book. It was when
one reached a certain page in it, somewhere I think near the
halfway mark, that Hanon' s became mandatory as an adjunct
to it.

110 A LOST PARADISE

The "pieces" I heard were, too, for the most part familiar
to me. I knew by name about a half-dozen, the sounds of which
reached me as I played in the streets in spring and summer.
They were for me not only marvels of melodic grace but,
more important, musical embodiments of familiar ideas and
images. There was, for example, Lilly, one of my favorites.
Did the composer have in mind a girl or a flower? At first I
inclined toward the flower. But when I got to know a girl of
that name, I was certain that he had in mind a Lilly as fragile
and tender as the one I knew. Actually, the "piece" could
easily be a celebration of either, or to go a step farther, as I
, often did in those days, of all girls and all flowers. I felt that
music of the caliber of Lilly and A Mother's Prayer had a
special dimension that placed it above all other forms of art.
It was a dimension I found impossible to define but I was
conscious of its presence each time I heard A Mother's
Prayer. In this extraordinary composition the composer had
undertaken to reveal, by the use of a simple melody and its
transformation first in arpeggios, then in octaves, and finally
in repeated octaves, a mother's heart with all its hopes and
fears. It offered unlimited scope to the imagination of the
listener. After all, no two mothers were alike, even though
their hopes and fears were fundamentally the same. Certainly
my mother was quite different from the mothers of the boys
and girls I knew. The wonder for me was that the composer
of A Mother's Prayer had caught, without having ever met her*
the very special quality of my mother's hopes and fears.

The Burning of Rome, another favorite, was of a different
order. Less emotionally disturbing than A Mother's Prayer, it
was a musical piece of realism which never failed to grip one.
The title page, with its picture in color of the ancient city
enveloped in lurid flames and the toga-clad and laurel-
crowned obese figure of Nero gleefully plucking a harp as he
stood on an apparently safe superstructure in the background,
offered an appropriate foretaste of the musical interpretation

Euterpe on Henry Street 1 1 1

of that sadistic concert. The composer, quite properly reluc-
tant to trust the historical knowledge of the player and his
audience, had scattered at various places in the composition
verbal hints of what the music was about. They were meant to
provide, in addition to historical information, suggestions to
the executant for a realistic interpretation of the scene, and for
this the printed words were ideal. For myself, I felt that the
full impact of The Burning of Rome could only be experienced
by standing behind the performer and reading these comments
over his shoulder. I can see them vividly before me, as I did
half a century ago. "Rome lies deep in slumber. ... A
sound of chariot wheels is heard in the distance. . . . What
is that faint gleam in the distance? . . . The sky is now
alight. . . . Fire? Fire!! . . . The flames sweep the Eternal
City. . . . Rome, roused from its slumber, flees! . . . But
who is that strange figure on the balcony? ... It is the
Emperor. . . . The tyrant Nero! . . ."

There were other tone poems of equal power, fully anno-
tated and realistically illustrated. I knew Ben HUT'S Chariot
Race long before I heard about the book. Ben Hur, a handsome
Roman with a ribbon around his brow, leaning forward in his
two-wheeled chariot and urging his horses on to victory!
There was The Chicago Fire, minutely documented from Mrs.
Leary and her cow to the destruction that ensued; the Sinking
of the Battleship Maine, and some other violently descriptive
"pieces" that I can no longer recall. In time I was to become
aware of the music of Bach and Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt;
for the lower East Side of my era was a cultural center full of
earnest students of all the arts as well as incipient gangsters.
But in my tenth year I was drawn exclusively to programmatic
music of the kind I have tried to describe.

If I spent a good deal of my spare time in the vicinity of the
piano teacher's basement on Henry Street, playing hopscotch
so as not to arouse the curiosity of my playmates and the
people who always sat on stoops, I did not neglect East

112 A LOST PARADISE

Broadway, my own street, the long, wide artery that sprang
out of Grand Street close to the East River and ended in the
mysterious purlieus of Chatham Square. Practically all of
East Broadway housed the elite of the lower East Side.
Brownstone houses, the desideratum of the poor, were the
rule, not the exception as in all other streets. All the doctors
had their offices on the stoop floor of the brownstones and
lived with their families in luxury and style on the floor above.
But one small segment of the Great Avenue, the block between
Jefferson and Rutgers streets, was given over to business
enterprises and a few tenements, in one of which I lived.
Among the more important mercantile establishments was
Spector's piano store. Next to listening to the sound of a
piano, I loved to look at one, and through the large plate-glass
window of Spector's store I could examine at pretty close
range a whole series of upright pianos, beginning with the
large one in the window and ending with a shadowy one at
the back of the store, looking diminutive in perspective. The
large one seemed so aglow in its polish, so spotless, that one
could only with difficulty relate its condition to any human
agency. A cardboard sign resting on an easel close to it stated
that the instrument was made of solid mahogany, obviously the
most desirable of all woods, as I already knew from looking
in the windows of furniture stores. Mahogany itself was
estimable. But solid mahogany implied a combination of
density and purity, an ideal, impenetrable outer casing for a
sensitive musical mechanism. The sign "guaranteed" the
presence of solid mahogany and enumerated other desirable
features. It mentioned "overtones" and claimed a greater
number of them for Spector's pianos than could be detected in
the instruments of any and all rival makes. I did not, of course,
then know what overtones were, but the name did suggest
something hauntingly supplementary. At any rate, the value
of both features seemed incontestable, and I was determined to
consider no other instruments but those of Mr. Spector,

Euterpe on Henry Street 113

should the time ever arrive when I would be in a position to
own one. Mr. Spector dangled before would-be purchasers a
vista of easy payments after a token down-payment (the size
of which he deemed infinitesimal) . But even these wonder-
fully advantageous terms were, at the moment, beyond us,
because we were already involved in a similar transaction on a
smaller scale.

JVIy mother's resourcefulness in moments of economic
crisis appeared unlimited. Some situations, like the purchase
of clothes, seemed to demand the brashest of tactics. Others,
like the ever-recurring crisis of the gas meter when there
wasn't a quarter in the house, called for quiet diplomacy.
Of an evening one of my sisters might be entertaining a
gentleman who would, perhaps soon, we hoped, reveal him-
self as a suitor, when suddenly the gas would begin to flicker
and go out. At such moments my mother would strike a
match, reach for her purse, open it with her free hand, peer in
it closely, and announce laughingly that she could find nothing
but bills. The gentleman, hastily fumbling in his pocket,
would produce a quarter, and the light would come on as
quickly as it had disappeared.

My mother's involvement with the credit system had to do
with a flowered silk tablecloth, negotiations for which she had
just concluded with an itinerant merchant. The terms were
not unreasonable ten weekly payments of twenty-five cents,
with nothing down. But, coming on top of previous purchases,
payments for which had not yet been completed, and con-
sidering the insatiable appetite of the gas meter, the rent,
food, and other necessities, the latest purchase added a heavy
weight to our already overburdened economy. There was also
the emotional strain involved in keeping the transaction a
secret from my father, who professed to abhor the credit
system. My mother was very adroit at explaining to him the
sudden presence of things around the house. I forgot how she
accounted for the new tablecloth. My own role in the decep-

114 A LOST PARADISE

tion was that of an intercepter. On the day of the week on
which an installment fell due, I would be stationed on the
street to watch for the approach of the collector. When he
appeared, I would give him the quarter or plead for a post-
ponement. I was on no account to let him enter the house.

No, this was certainly no time even to dream about owning
one of Spector's shining pianos. As I turned away from the
plate-glass window, I wondered if there ever would be a time.
Money was not the only barrier. There was also niy father,
who regarded all secular music as noise and all instrumentalists
as disturbers of the peace. If I were ever to learn to play
the piano, it would have to be away from home and managed
as secretly as my mother's installment buying.

Katz's music store, next in importance for me to Spector's
piano store, was a smaller shop, but equally dream-provoking.
Its window display featured copies of many of my favorite
compositions, notably Lilly and A Mother's Prayer; also the
piano methods of Beyer and Hanon. The store had a reputation
as a hangout for musical notables, and the composer of A
Mother's Prayer was a frequent caller. The celebrated baritone
Beniamino Burgo would also drop in to examine the latest
publications for his type of voice. Burgo, I learned, had had a
fascinating and meteoric career. Only a year before, he had
worked under his own name of Benjamin Ginzburg as a
sign-painter in the neighborhood. Mr. Katz had heard him
sing while at work, and had brought him to the attention of a
famous Italian vocal teacher residing on East Broadway. After
a year of intensive study with the Maestro, and with his
name transformed, Beniamino Burgo had made his debut at a
concert and ball at Pythagoras Hall, a few doors from
Spector's. His success had been phenomenal, and now there
was hardly a concert or ball that did not feature him as its
main attraction. It was rumored that his popularity had gone
to his head, and that he now avoided the company of his
former friends and (in winter) affected a coat with a fur

Euterpe on Henry Street 1 1 5

collar, a "soft" hat with a large brim, and a nickel-topped
cane.

All the really important musical events took place in Py-
thagoras Hall, a vast room that also housed large-scale wed-
dings and the better-class bar mitzvahs. The concerts were
invariably followed by balls, and the two were considered as
entities. A concert was a most generous entertainment that
usually lasted from eight in the evening to midnight, after
which the seats were removed in preparation for the ensuing
ball. The participating artists were numerous, and as I
watched them one night brush past the ticket-taker at the
entrance, uttering the single word "Talent" by way of
identification, the idea came to me that the word could be an
"Open sesame" to me too. At the very next concert and ball
I presented myself, armed with a bundle of wrapping paper
that looked like a roll of music, at the gate of Pythagoras
Hall, spoke the magic word, and was admitted without
further inquiry. It was at that concert and ball that I had the
good fortune to hear Beniamino Burgo sing and instantly
repeat, by popular demand, the "Toreador Song" from
Carmen.

If one's taste also ran to literary celebrities, and mine did,
we could watch them enter or leave Malkin's bookstore, a
few doors from Pythagoras Hall. The window of this shop
was cluttered with volumes of the world's best literature
from the earliest times to the present. One could spell out the
authors and titles on the backs or fronts of cloth- and paper-
bound books: Shakespeare, Shelley, Byron, Goethe, Heine,
Tolstoy, Turgeniev. There were framed portraits of poets,
painters, musicians, philosophers, and revolutionaries. The
name of Michael Bakunin identified a portrait of a truly
terrifying man, wild and disheveled, with blazing eyes. And
next to him, a picture of the benign and affable Ivan Tur-
geniev, whose complete works dominated the window. Of all
the great men on display there, I picked Turgeniev as my

Il6 A LOST PARADISE

Ideal of what an author should look like, and I spelled out the
titles of his books, hoping to find in them a foretaste of their
contents. There were A Nest of Noblemen (how provocative!
what sort of nest could that be?), On the Eve (of what?),
and Fathers and Sons (what were their relations? could the
story throw any light on my own situation at home?).

There were Buckle's History of Civilization in England,
Spencer's First Principles, Darwin's Origin of Species, Helm-
holtz's On Sound, Zola's Germinal, Shaw's An Unsocial Socialist,
and A Communist Manifesto. I knew all the titles by heart. I
also got to know the names of many important literary and
political figures. Seldom indeed did I see anyone leave Mai-
kin's with a book, but the sound of heated discussions inside
could always be heard on the street. I learned to identify the
fiery voice of Emma Goldman, the celebrated anarchist, and
the softer voice of the anarchist leader, Johann Most, reputed
to be Emma's lover. It was common knowledge on East
Broadway that Miss Goldman, in an uncontrollable fit of
jealousy, had taken a horsewhip to Mr. Most. However, it
'may have been the other way around. I was therefore taken
aback when I saw them one day emerging from Malkin's
bookstore hand in hand. I should have been used to incon-
gruities in the relations of the sexes. Among our friends there
was a married couple who on their visits to us would bitterly
denounce each other, their enmity sometimes bordering on
violence. They always left the house declaring their un-
alterable decision to secure an instant divorce. Yet year after
year, with startling punctuality, they would announce the
birth of a child and invite us to celebrate the event with cakes
and wine. These people were, of course, presumably incapable
of the rational behavior expected of intellectuals. It was pain-
ful to have to admit that Miss Goldman and Mr. Most could
be on occasion as irrational as ordinary people.

If the emotional instability of this otherwise noble pair
puzzled me, there were many exceptional residents of the East

Euterpe on Henry Street nj

Side who did not deviate from the idealistic code they had
espoused. Such were the editor of Freiheit and his wife, who
lived with their two children on the floor above us. Freiheit
(Freedom) was a revolutionary weekly, forbidden in our house
and in the houses of all orthodox Jews, but read surreptitiously
by my two older sisters. The ill repute of Freiheit affected me
in a personal way, for I was not permitted to associate with
the editor's children. They seemed nice enough, though some-
what too clean and orderly, and I would gladly have played
with them. My position in respect to them and their parents
was a curious one. On the one side I heard very strange
rumors about them from my playmates. It was said that the
editor and his wife if she could, indeed, be called his wife
had never bothered to marry, not even "in court," the place to
which the more respectable atheists repaired for a drab civil
ceremony. The children of this unhallowed union seemed
quite unconscious of their equivocal status. They appeared to
be cheerful and carefree at all times, notwithstanding that
they were forced by their mother (so I heard) to drink three
spoonfuls daily of a nasty, thick, odorless liquid called "cod-
liver oil," a kind of castor oil without the smell. On the other
hand, my sisters, who read Freiheit, maintained, not of course
in the hearing of my father and mother, that the editor and his
wife were idealistic to a degree, even going so far as to justify
their rejection of the marriage ceremony as a heroic implemen-
tation of a principle, however misguided.

Mr. Strassmeir was another intellectual whose ideals and
deportment were, for the most part, in the most harmonious
relation. Mr. Strassmeir was the young and talented teacher
of my class at No. 2 . A man of seemingly immeasurable learn-
ing, he was also an amateur pianist of such proficiency as to
make his passing into the professional category contingent
only on his pleasure. It is true that we never heard him play
anything but The Mosquito Parade at morning assembly. Even
on the morning when the entire school was summoned by Mr.

Il8 A LOST PARADISE

Denscher, the principal, to mourn the death of President
McKinley, we marched In to the strains of The Mosquito
Parade. This was one occasion, I ventured to think, that called
for a march less light and buoyant, the more so as we were
soon required to sing the somber Nearer, My God, to Thee, the
late President's favorite hymn. Mr. Strassmeir's political
opinions were advanced, and he was, I knew, perfectly capable
of indulging in a bit of sardonic humor at the expense of the
Republican Party in ushering in so solemn a meeting with
The Mosquito Parade. But I was myself so moved by the as-
sassination and even more by our melting rendition of Nearer,
My God, to Thee that I preferred to believe that Mr. Strass-
meir had not heard about the tragedy until Mr. Denscher' s
solemn announcement that morning.

The truth was that my admiration for Mr. Strassmeir was
unbounded, and he could do no wrong. I compared him, suc-
cessfully, with such celebrated models of perfection as Gala-
had and Sir Philip Sidney, though he sometimes assumed a
hostile attitude to his class or a few individuals in it, which, in
the light of the legends about them, would have been foreign
to the natures of the English paragons. He resembled them
physically, I thought. He was strikingly tall and slim, with
blue eyes and curly hair, his cheeks slightly flushed, as if re-
flecting an inner fire. His manner alternated between pas-
sionate seriousness and flippancy tinged with sarcasm. He
would interrupt our lessons to speak to us on the disgrace of
poverty and on the callousness of government and the rich.
He read to us, one memorable day, Thomas Hood's The Song
of the Shirt, and the entire class was shaken. His skillfully
modulated voice supplied a dramatic orchestration to the
poem. As he intoned sadly the opening: "With fingers weary
and worn," we could almost see before us Hood's tragic
seamstress in her dark, airless, shabby attic, forever doomed
to ply her needle for the benefit of the unfeeling rich. And
when, with an inflection that conjured up the hopeless mo-

Euterpe on Henry Street 1 1 9

notony of her existence, he spoke the ever-recurring refrain:
"Stitch! stitch! stitch!" some of us could bear the strain no
longer and sobbed aloud.

My ambition was to become in all respects a man like Mr.
Strassmeir, and I forgave him his lapses from the ideal of
humanism and chivalry implicit in his noble character and im-
mense attainments, even when I myself was their victim. Such
a lapse was painfully apparent to me once when in response to
my usual respectful indeed, timidly affectionate "Good
morning, Mr. Strassmeir," he asked, rather sharply, whether I
had washed my face that morning. Had we been alone, I
would have gladly accepted the irrelevance of his query (for I
had washed my face that morning) as an excess of his habitual
early-morning exuberance. But in the presence of the whole
class it could not be construed as anything but a calculated
insult.

Sometime later the class had just finished the study of
Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Mr. Strassmeir was recapitulat-
ing the story and brilliantly pointing out the poet's artistry in
the handling of the pitiful drama. As an example of poetic
economy he quoted the ending: "the little port had seldom
seen a costlier funeral," and asked if any of us could tell him
'why the little port had seldom seen a costlier funeral. No one
raised a hand. Mr. Strassmeir waited, tapping the palm of his
left hand with a ruler. Suddenly he pointed the ruler straight
at me. "Don't you know why?" he demanded in a sneering
falsetto. "You always know everything!" It was difficult to
reconcile such instances of fortuitous cruelty with his passion-
ate devotion to Socialism and the Brotherhood of Man, and
I had many dark hours of doubt.

Mr. Strassmeir's passion for music put an official seal on my
own ambition in that direction. I could not, however, honestly
claim for him that he was "the only begetter" of my interest
in music. Even before I knew the privilege of an association
(however one-sided) with him, I loved music for itself and

I2O A LOST PARADISE

looked forward to the weekly appearances of Miss Tinker,
visiting music teacher at No. 2. Miss Tinker was a small,
prim, quite unprepossessing woman with graying hair parted
In the middle and tied in a knot at the back. She generated a
melancholy that the mournful sound of the pitch-pipe on
which she always sounded a preliminary C, and her own hol-
low falsetto as she repeated it, made more depressing. But
she was a capable teacher and an expert in the intricacies of
part-singing. Her repertoire of part-songs was extensive.
Among other things, she taught us what I considered a
poignant arrangement in two-part harmony of "The Lord Is
My Shepherd." I was among the altos, and when we sang "I
sha-ha-ha-hal nah-hot want" in florid counterpoint under the
forthright, severe ascending melody of the sopranos, the
effect, at least to me, was shattering.

Miss Tinker opened new vistas in music. But it was Mr.
Strassmeir who, unconsciously, gave direction to my love for
the art. The piano was to be my instrument because it was his.
My mastery of it would, I hoped and believed, break down his
Indifference to me, compel him to recognize me as a true
disciple and treat me with the courtesy, if not the affection,
due a co-worker in the realms of art and humanitarianism. A
definite picture of the great moment when I would stand thus
revealed to Mr. Strassmeir had begun to take shape in my
mind: the school would be on the point of marching into as-
sembly, and Mr. Strassmeir would be about ready to strike
the opening chords of the march, when he would be seen to
falter. Mr, Denscher, standing at his lectern near by, prepared
to read his daily passage from the Bible, would turn to the
stricken teacher and help him into an adjoining room. He
would come back a moment later to tell us that Mr. Strassmeir
had suffered a slight attack of dizziness and to assure us he
would soon be all right. In the meantime he would call on any
student or teacher who could play the piano to step forward.
I would then leave my place in the line and make my way to

Euterpe on Henry Street 1 2 1

the piano. I would sit down and swing into The Mosquito
Parade, and the astonished classes would begin marching.
Later I would be summoned to Mr. Denscher's private office.
There I would find Mr. Strassmeir, still pale, but now re-
covered. Mr. Denscher would say: "I have brought him,"
and would leave us alone, closing the door behind him. The
ensuing interview eluded all my attempts at exact definition. I
knew, in a general way, that Mr. Strassmeir would be compli-
mentary to a degree unusual for him. But I could not, as yet,
imagine what my replies would be. At some point in the inter-
view I hoped I would have the courage to ask him if he had
really meant to humiliate me when he asked if I had washed
my face. I would, of course, be prepared to forgive him if he
had.

At any rate, I was determined to learn to play the piano,
and it was only a question of just when I would find myself
unable to resist ringing the doorbell of the piano teacher's
basement on Henry Street. The moment came on my way
home from school one lovely spring afternoon. It was easier
than I had expected it to be. I went directly to the house,
opened the iron wicket, walked down the half-dozen steps,
and rang the bell as coolly as if I were paying a visit to a play-
mate. An old woman in a black wig opened the door, led me
into the parlor, and disappeared.

After a few minutes a younger-looking woman came in,
introduced herself as Miss Taffel, the piano teacher, and
asked me if I came about lessons. While I replied, she struck
a match and lit one of the gas-jets. The resulting illumination
chased the darkness into the corners of the room and lit up
Miss Taffel's face and figure. She looked even younger now,
and, I thought, handsome. But her manner was frighteningly
brusque and matter-of-fact for a Custodian of the Art. With-
out any preliminary amenities she announced her terms,
which were ten cents the lesson, one or two lessons per week
(she advised two at the beginning) and one hour of practice on

122 A LOST PARADISE

her piano daily except on the Sabbath. There was no charge
for the practice hour, which was to be from four to five in the
afternoon. The fee was to be paid before each lesson or, I was
told, there would be no lesson. I was to come the following day
for my first lesson, bearing ten cents and Beyer's Book. I
agreed to the conditions, but said that I would have to content
myself with one lesson per week for the present. Miss Taffel
then terminated the interview by turning off the gas-jet and
opening the door leading into the pitch-black hall.

When I regained the street, the seriousness of my new situ-
ation struck me for the first time. The income of our family,
even by our own austere standards, was quite meager. My
father earned four or five dollars a week teaching Hebrew to a
few boys in the neighborhood whose propensities for mischief
made them ineligible at the numerous cheders or Hebrew
schools. Two of my sisters worked at home, making cig-
arettes. They were paid by the piece, and their combined
weekly earnings fluctuated, like my father's, between four
and five dollars. The earnings of the other children were
intermittent and quite negligible. The rent for our three-room
"railroad" tenement came to twelve dollars a month. Cloth-
ing, food, gas, my father's dues at his synagogue, doctors' fees
and medicine, and the installments on the never-ending suc-
cession of "furnishings" which my mother could not resist
buying, more than accounted for what was left. It need not be
surprising that a child of ten living, half a century ago, in the
poorest section of the city should have been so familiar with
the details of his family's domestic economy. Our small apart-
ment, housing eight persons, offered few opportunities for
privacy. My parents occupied the only bed in the house, in the
small windowless and doorless room between the kitchen and
the front room. My sisters slept on improvised beds on the
floor of the latter, I on four chairs set up each night in the
kitchen. In the morning the chairs would be pulled from under
me, one by one, as they were required for breakfast.

Euterpe on Henry Street 123

In the yard of our tenement house a number of outhouses
provided sanitation for the occupants. This arrangement did
not strike us as in any way unusual. The water closets as
they were flatteringly called (there was no water anywhere
around) were always locked, and each family was given a
key. In the summer, when windows were wide open, the
children playing on the street would shout for some member
of their family to throw the key, wrapped In paper, down on
the pavement. More often the request would be multiple:
"Mamma, throw down my beanbag, a piece of bread and but-
ter, and the key to the water closet!" Sometimes a child could
earn a penny by giving his key to a passer-by in distress.

Our sleeping arrangements were somewhat altered in the
summer. Except when it rained, my youngest sister and I
slept on the fire escape. But, summer and winter, our family
life was a public spectacle to its members and even, in a
measure, to our neighbors; for the walls of the tenement were
cardboard-thin and the voices of the occupants innocently un-
inhibited. The elaborate measures my mother was forced to
Improvise to keep my father from learning the precarious
nature of her domestic economy, as well as other matters she
deemed it wise to keep from him, were necessitated by this
quite public family existence. And then success depended
frankly on the circumstance of my father's absence from home
during definite hours of the day. Any change in his schedule
could upset her strategy and might result in a secretly tele-
graphed summons to the conspirators, who included me, to
meet in the comparative privacy of the yard or on some street
corner for a discussion of new tactics to meet the new situa-
tion.

I arrived home after my Interview with Miss Taffel in time
to call a family council safely. My father would not be home
for another hour. As I expected, my news created a sensation.
Approval was general and immediate. And my mother, for
whom secrecy and intrigue had by now become necessary

124 A LOST PARADISE

stimulants, began at once to consider how best to keep the
momentous news from my father. My sisters addressed them-
selves to the practical aspects of the contract I had entered
into with Miss Taffel. The cost of the lessons they themselves
would manage to contribute, but the immediate purchase of
Beyer's Book, not to speak of the subsequent books and sheet
music I would require, offered a problem that seemed to defy
solution. My mother, however, pooh-poohed their doubts,
and herself undertook to visit Mr. Katz and negotiate for
Beyer's Book as a starter.

There was, of course, no time to lose. My mother and I at
once set out for the music shop. I was quite optimistic about
the outcome, for I had had many evidences of my mother's
skill in persuading tradesmen and landlords to accede to what
always seemed to me outrageous terms. When we reached the
shop, my optimism left me. My mother went in, and I, feeling
myself unable to endure a meeting of such momentous conse-
quence, remained outside. Eventually my mother came out,
carrying Beyer's Book not the paper edition, but the costly
crimson cardboard volume. She had had, she told me, no
trouble at all with Mr. Katz, who grasped the situation at
once and offered her all the time she desired to pay for the
book. He also showed an inclination to be as elastic with
respect to all my future needs, asking only for a small token
down-payment within the next few days. This, my mother
assured him, would be forthcoming. He had her word for it.

Before my father came home that evening, I concealed the
identity of Beyer's Book with a cover of wrapping paper and
strapped it in with my schoolbooks. As I left the house the
next morning, my mother, in giving me my daily allowance of
a penny, surreptitiously added a dime. And at four o'clock
that afternoon I was in Miss TaffePs front room. Miss Taffel
was there to receive me and her fee. This done, she spun the
revolving seat of the piano stool to a suitable height, placed my
Beyer's Book on the music rack, skipped the preliminary

Euterpe on Henry Street 125

pages addressed to "The Teacher," and opened it to a picture
of a keyboard with the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, identifying the
white keys. As I picked out the corresponding notes on the
piano, I could not help reflecting for a moment on Miss
Taffel's utter lack of curiosity about me. She had not asked
me my name, my address, or what school I attended!

I learned the treble and bass clefs very quickly, and in no
time arrived at the little exercises in finger technique disguised
and made palatable to the beginner by provocative titles like
"Little Polka," "The Running Brook," and "Little Dog Chas-
ing His Tail." Miss Taffel never wasted a word. Her lesson
lasted exactly one hour, not a minute more or less, as I could
see by a kitchen clock that stood on the piano. Her efficiency
was beyond question, but her impersonal attitude, toward
both me and music, seemed increasingly strange in a disciple
of an art that I considered the most emotional of all. Either
she was unaware of the poetic flavor of the titles of the little
pieces she taught me or she deliberately chose to consider
only the technical problems they illuminated. When I essayed,
on my own, a bit of poetic realism in the "Little Dog Chasing
His Tail" by speeding up the tempo toward the end, Miss
Taffel implied her disapproval by beginning to count four in a
bar in very strict time, in her sharp, impersonal voice. When,
during my practice period, alone in the room, I might yield to
some poetic impulse and indulge in "interpretation," the old
lady who had answered the doorbell the very first time I rang
it would put her head through the door and say: "My daughter
says you shouldn't."

Miss Taffel was out a good deal of the time giving piano
lessons to pupils in their homes. She shared the dark basement
with her mother and an older brother, whose querulous voice
often reached me from some back room in the house. I
gathered he did no work of any sort and was content to let the
entire support of the household devolve on his sister. The two
were in a perpetual state of war, and their recriminations in

126 A LOST PARADISE

the back room sometimes grew so loud as to drown out the
sound of the piano. At the height of these, Miss Taffel would
command her brother to leave the premises and never return.
But he scorned the suggestion as having no relation at all to
the settlement of whatever it was they were quarreling about.
Miss Taffel was soulless and mercenary, but less so than her
brother. One winter afternoon, when the room grew so dark
that I could not see the music before me, strain as I might, she
came in and lit the gas-jet. I had hardly time to thank her when
her brother rushed in, gave her a withering look, turned off
the gas, and ran out. Miss Taffel followed him, and the noise
of their quarrel seeped into the front room as I struggled in
the gloom to decipher the new piece I was learning.

I finished Beyer's Book in what some of Miss TaffePs
pupils assured me was record time, but there was never a
word of praise from Miss Taffel herself. I went on to Burg-
mueller's Book, a collection of twenty-four veritable tone
poems, one to a page, excepting the last, which required two
full pages for the complete exposition of its poetic idea. At the
same time, I was given sheet music, some with haunting titles,
but all of them embodying technical problems. The Alpine
Shepherd's Evening Song, by a German composer whose name
I cannot recall, was a poignantly evocative piece that I never
grew tired of playing. Nor can I remember the technical prob-
lem it posed. The picture on the cover showed a mountainous
landscape resembling that in the picture of Napoleon Crossing
the Alps over the piano. Its mood, however, was beautifully
idyllic. The shepherd, having presumably rounded up his
flock, sat on the ground, playing his rustic pipe while the
setting sun cast a beautiful sad glow over the landscape. The
piece itself was built on a lovely melody expressive of the
gentleness of the shepherd's immemorial occupation, and a
series of bell-like echo effects evoked the rarefied atmosphere
of the Alpine countryside in summer. So touching was this
pastoral music idyl that I seldom got through the piece dry-

Euterpe on Henry Street 127

eyed. How different from the somber effect of Napoleon
Crossing the Alpsl There was, it is true, something heroic
about this picture, the indomitable will of the general, per-
haps, as indicated in the stocky figure, muffled up to the neck
and astride a white horse whose nostrils emitted icy streams
of air, and urging on with an imperiously extended right hand
some ragged soldiers desperately lugging pieces of cannon up
the rocky terrain behind him. I was not aware at that time
that Napoleon had succeeded in crossing the Alps. In the dim
light of my practice hour the outcome of the brave expedition
appeared to me highly uncertain. I would sometimes have
nightmares in which I would see Napoleon no longer urging
on his men, but lying dead, his soldiers and cannon, half-hid-
den by the snow, strewn around him, the only survivor the
noble steed, his nostrils still emitting streams of icy air. I
often wondered why the composer of The Alpine Shepherd's
Evening Song had neglected to portray in music the other, the
terrifying side of life in the Alps.

It was now almost a year since I had begun to study the
piano. Mr. Katz had lived up to my mother's estimate of him,
cheerfully keeping me supplied with whatever music Miss
Taffel thought I required. For her part, my mother tried
valiantly to observe her side of the bargain, but on several oc-
casions she was obliged to make visits of a propitiatory nature
to the music store. It was not long before Mr. Katz induced
me to buy some of his publications, though he was well aware
that Miss Taffel did not consider any of them pedagogical
necessities. In time I added The Mosquito Parade to my rapidly
expanding repertoire, with the possibility always in mind of
the hoped-for dramatic turn of events at school, which would
in one moment reveal me to everyone there, but especially to
Mr. Strassmeir, as a musical prodigy. I devoted most of the
time of Miss TaffeFs absences to the perfection of the march
until I felt I would be equal to the occasion, come when it.
would!

128 A LOST PARADISE

In the meantime, my mother and sisters were clamoring to
hear me play so as to judge for themselves the extent of the
progress I claimed to have made. I felt sure of making an im-
pression on thewi, and it only remained for me to get permis-
sion to invite my family to Miss Taffel's front room during
one of my practice hours. Miss Taffel, when I put the idea of
a little recital to her, didn't seem to care one way or the other,
stipulating that I was not to light the gas, because her brother
had the strongest objection to unseasonal illumination. I was
hoping that Miss Taffel would not be at home at the hour of
my projected concert, and when my mother and sisters sat
down on the Wiener chairs in the front room, I played a few
bars of A Mother's Prayer to find out. The forbidden melody
brought no reaction from the rear of the house, so I knew for
certain Miss Taffel was out. This made it possible for me to
include at least two proscribed pieces in my program. I be-
gan with The Mosquito Parade and, fearing that Miss Taffel
might unexpectedly return, followed it quickly with A
Mother s Prayer. I could see in their faces that my mother and
sisters were quite unprepared for the facility I exhibited and
the feeling I put into the music. My rendition of A Mother's
Prayer had the expected effect, all the more so as it was the
only familiar music on my program; but I reserved my best
efforts for The Alpine Shepherd's Evening Song, the echo
effects of which elicited murmurs of delight from my audience.
Soon the room grew quite dark and the ominous shadows I
knew so well began to play on Napoleon Crossing the Alps.
Remembering Miss TaffePs injunction about the gas, I closed
the piano lid and ushered my family out of the basement into
the light of a late spring afternoon.

On the sidewalk, my mother kissed me extravagantly and
cried, in full view of boys playing prisoner's base. My sisters
were more circumspect, though I saw their eyes fill with tears.
In their enthusiasm they promised to buy me a certain sailor
suit with white trimmings and a white cord with a whistle at

Euterpe on Henry Street 129

the end, which I had long coveted. I knew it would be some
time before they could find the dollar and a quarter that was
the asking price for the suit. But in the past year I had dis-
covered that the most unlikely things could happen. It now
seemed to me quite possible that I would be wearing the sailor
suit and blowing the whistle at the end of the cord by the time
another year came around.

CHAPTER SEVEN

. Silver., Individualist

i

.T WAS nine o'clock on the morning of a new term
in P.S. No. 2. The class was standing, each boy next to his
desk, waiting for the new teacher. A monitor had placed us
in alphabetical order, and my desk was in the first row im-
mediately in front of the teacher's desk. Presently we heard
the sound of footsteps in the hall, and a tall, thin man came
hastily into the room. Without so much as a glance at the
class, he strode to the blackboard, seized a piece of chalk, and
quickly wrote in beautiful script: "Mr. Silver" He put down
the chalk, brushed one palm against the other with the elegance
of a cymbal-player, and sat down at his desk. He took out a
paper from a drawer and read out our names. "Raise your
right hand when your name is called and sit down," he said.
And as each boy raised his hand and sat down, Mr. Silver
bestowed on him a sharp, fleeting look.

Mr. Silver, Individualist 1 3 1

Mr. Silver's face was long, freckled, and delicately formed.
His eyes were steely, yet curiously expressive of his mental
reactions to what they revealed to him. A second after he
looked at an object his eyes would, as it were, pronounce
judgment. The roll call over, he leaned forward, put his el-
bows on the desk, intertwined the four fingers of each hand,
and with his thumbs began stroking in opposite directions an
Imaginary mustache on his lip. As he stroked, he turned his
concentrated gaze on each boy in turn. When he came to me,
he stared longer and harder and worked his thumbs with
calculated deliberation. I felt uncomfortable under this
scrutiny. At the same time I was obliged to repress an impulse
'to laugh at the industrious workings of his thumbs on his lip.
At length he spoke, still looking straight at me. "I'll have no
nonsense here," he said sharply and, I thought, rather ir-
relevantly, since the class sat silent and serious, its eyes on
him. "We're here to work and for nothing else. If anyone
doesn't like it here," and he suddenly jerked his left thumb in
the direction of the door, "he can go elsewhere!" As he snapped
out the word "elsewhere," it conjured up a bleak, purposeless,
sterile, trackless region as unprofitable as the moon. It seemed
as if he meant to address the class through me, and I tried
hard to look away and so retreat into the safe anonymity of
the other boys. But his hypnotic eyes held me fast, and a
silence ensued during which the thumbs resumed their work
on his upper lip. I knew I should be unable to bear the sight
much longer without laughing, and the inevitability of my
breakdown and the punishment that must ensue filled me with
terror. As far back as I could remember, I had been fighting a
propensity to laugh. I would laugh at anything or at nothing at
all. I would laugh when I felt sober and grave. I laughed at
deformity and mishap when I would rather have cried. Some-
times I had to repress a perverse desire to laugh when a funeral
passed by. Yet I had no impulse to laugh at Italian funerals, in
which the mourners marched to the sad music of brass bands.

132 A LOST PARADISE

But now, as if at the command of some "Imp of the Per-
verse," I laughed straight into the face of the formidable
teacher who stroked a mustache he didn't have. It was a loud,
staccato laugh, and it left me frozen with horror. To my sur-
prise, it came again a second later, ignoring the terror I felt.
Mr. Silver left his desk, came close to me, and with his fist
struck me repeatedly in the face. I did not mind the blows. In-
deed, I was grateful for them, for they released my tears. I
was beginning to feel a sense of relief, when Mr. Silver seized
me by the scruff of my neck and hustled me out of the room.
u You may come back when youVe laughed yourself out!" he
shouted after me as he closed the door.

It seemed to me that I had laughed myself out forever. As I
paced the hall waiting for the passing of a decent interval be-
fore I re-entered the classroom, I was certain that nothing
would ever again seem comical or ludicrous to me. But when I
opened the door halfway and saw Mr. Silver at his desk, his
thumbs again stroking his lip, I knew I must laugh or die, and
I shut the door hastily and fled down the hall and into the
basement, where I took refuge in one of the open toilets that
stretched in a row the length of the building. My next attempt
to enter the classroom proved successful. Mr. Silver was on
his feet talking to the class, one hand in his trouser pocket, the
other playing with his bunch of keys. I did not want to laugh.

Having established his authority so sensationally on the
very first morning of the term, Mr. Silver could presumably
afford to relax. And soon he disclosed a provocative and even
engaging personality. When not angered and moved to take
disciplinary measures, he was breezily efficient and coolly but
interestingly informative, even on dry subjects like arithmetic.
His approach to teaching was informal deceptively so we
were to discover, for at the first sign of camaraderie on the
part of a boy he would instantly change into a tyrannical
disciplinarian. He impressed us by doing the unexpected. For
example, when explaining sums on the blackboard he eschewed

Mr. Silver , Individualist 133

the use of the traditional pointer, using instead a key selected
from a ring of keys he carried in his pocket. This lent an air of
intimacy to his demonstrations. We could not of course avoid
speculating about the large number of keys he carried about.
It was one boy's opinion that Mr. Silver could be another
Bluebeard who kept a corresponding number of wives under
lock and key. We had to admit that he was handsome enough
to marry as many women as he desired. Of one thing we had
no doubt. His ambition, his competence, and his authoritative-
ness were bound to carry him to the greatest pedagogical
heights.

Mr. Birnbaum, the principal, might well be jealous of him.
Mr. Birnbaum was not a man to be trifled with, notwith-
standing the unctuousness of his reading of a paragraph from
the Bible in assembly each morning. These paragraphs were
baffling. They seemed to make no sense in English, and they
lacked the musical appeal my father endowed them with when
he intoned them in Hebrew. When they did begin to make
sense, Mr. Birnbaum would perversely terminate his reading
and leave the story in mid-air.

"And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre:
and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. And he lift up
his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and
when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door,
and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, 'My Lord, if
now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray
thee, from thy servant: let a little water, I pray you, be
fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the
tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your
hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to
your servant." (Genesis, Chapter xviii.) Mr. Birnbaum spoke
the final phrase as if he were asking a question, placed the em-
broidered marker on the page, and piously closed the tooled-
leather tome, leaving us wondering just whom the Lord ap-
peared to and what subsequently happened.

134 A LOST PARADISE

We even preferred Mr. Silver's quick temper to Mr.
Birnbaum's studied reactions to the problems of a principal.
Mr. Silver might flare up at a boy, and in his passion hit out
at him; but he cooled off rapidly. And if the victim bore the
onslaught stoically and showed no resentment, Mr. Silver re-
warded him by electing to forget the incident and thence-
forward treating the boy with the breezy condescension we
thought so becoming to him. As for his attitude to Mr,
Birnbaum, it was gratifyingly aloof. Mr. Birnbaum would
make unexpected visits to classrooms, hoping, it was generally
assumed, to catch his teachers off guard or, at the very least,
to make them self-conscious and apologetic. "Please keep
right on with what you are doing," he would command
genially on entering a classroom. But we learned that most
teachers found it quite difficult to carry out this injunction.
They floundered about, showing plainly their want of self-
possession. On the other hand, some of them, sensing an op-
portunity of making a favorable impression, pretended a
severity that was alien to their natures. This threw the class
into a confusion that was not lost on the principal. Mr. Silver,
however, always took Mr. Birnbaum at his word and con-
tinued what he had been doing without any show of either
bravado or fear.

One morning a messenger appeared and told Mr. Silver
that Mr. Birnbaum desired to see him in his office without
delay. Mr. Silver said: "Very well," breezily, as if he didn't
care; but his face flushed and his eyes roamed over the class,
seeking out the boy who had betrayed him. The class had
reason to be apprehensive about the interview that would
take place in Mr. Birnbaum's office. The day before, Mr.
Silver had lost his temper and had struck a boy, who had
thereafter sulked all the morning and afternoon. The boy had
gained a reputation as a cry-baby and a sissy. For this we
blamed his mother, who accompanied him to school and
waited for him on the sidewalk when school was let out. We

Mr. Silver, Individualist 135

had little doubt that the boy had "snitched" on Mr. Silver
and that his mother had lodged a complaint with the principal.
The boy now gave himself away by crying softly. Mr. Silver
returned as briskly as he had left. The flush on his cheeks
glowed more brightly and his eyes looked steelier. "Rabino-
witz!" he called out sharply. "Stand up!" The boy got to his
feet. Mr. Silver regarded him contemptuously. "Rabino-
witz," Mr. Silver resumed, "I am asked to apologize to you
for striking you yesterday. I now do so. Sit down!" Rabino-
witz took his seat. The tears were pouring down his cheeks.
We could hardly blame him. It was all his mother's doing. It
went to show what an evil unbridled parental affection was.
We were sorry for Rabinowitz, but we gloried in Mr. Sil-
ver's display of withering scorn. And we were pretty sure
that in his brief interview with Mr. Birnbaum Mr. Silver
had given the principal little cause for satisfaction.

We discovered faint overtones of contempt in Mr. Silver's
demeanor toward his colleagues. We couldn't tell whether he
disliked the teachers or the subjects they taught, but we were
prepared to adopt his opinions and prejudices if we could but
know them. We did know that he was partial to realistic sub-
jects, to studies that would be useful in commercial life. But he
disdained to be specific and left us to guess at his opinions from
his occasional impromptu remarks on politics and current
events. These hinted at a philosophy that favored the survival
of the fittest and leadership by the confident and strong.
Poverty, Mr. Silver intimated, was merely the consequence of
laziness, want of ambition, and a disbelief in the potentialities
of the active man. He stressed the fact that "our forefathers"
(most of the boys and their parents had been born in Europe)
"could not have thrown off the British yoke and launched 'our'
great and successful Republic had they not been proud, hard,
and industrious individualists." And commenting on the re-
ports of a sanguine clash between striking coal-miners in
Pennsylvania and the armed forces dispatched to the area by

136 A LOST PARADISE

the Governor of the state, Mr. Silver reminded us that there
were no unions and no strikes at Concord, Valley Forge, and
Yorktown. No, sir! Only the frustrated and the cowardly
would favor unions and engage in strikes. It was the aim of the
Socialists to destroy initiative and take from the industrious
rich their well-earned possessions and hand them over to the
lazy, shiftless poor. And what would be the gain, Mr. Silver
inquired oratorically. Why, there would be no gain! he
answered himself. If the wealth of the country were to be di-
vided equally, the rich would lose everything and the poor
would hardly gain anything!

Whatever the boys, the majority of whom were only too
well acquainted with poverty, may have thought of Mr. Sil-
ver's contempt for the poor, I could not, try as I did, quite
share it. Wishing earnestly to adopt Mr. Silver's opinions on
all matters, I examined the habits and behavior of the indigent
class of which my family was a part. I found, much against
my will, hardly any evidences of laziness.

Perhaps if Mr. Silver had stopped in Rutgers Square some
evening and listened to the speakers of the Socialist Labor
Party he would have revised his estimate of the poor. I would
often join the small crowd in front of one of these men and
listen to descriptions of soul-and-body-destroying sweatshops
and impassioned enumerations of the iniquities of the "bosses"
who owned them. I heard that fathers left for work while
their children were still asleep and returned home after they
had gone to bed. In consequence they saw their offspring so
seldom as to make a mockery of parenthood. I heard with
horror that the "bosses" were drinking the blood of their
workmen and women. And while I knew that to be only a
figure of speech (my mother often accused me of drinking
hers), the image it evoked gave me the measure of the soulless
cupidity of the possessing class. As the one remedy for all its
cruelties and abuses, and on his assurance that we had nothing
to lose but our chains, the speaker urged us to unite. The loss

Mr. Silver , Individualist 1 3 7

of our chains was also a figure of speech which I was able to
translate. But the speaker was vague about the exact change
that would occur in our lives following that desirable eventu-
ality. An outline of some program would have enabled me to
oppose Mr. Silver's philosophy of competitive individualism.
But it was not forthcoming; and the enthusiasm the speakers
communicated to me in Rutgers Square was likely to evaporate
in the classroom, where I could not withstand the force of
Mr. Silver's opposition.

On the other hand, my elder sisters were ardent Socialists
and believed strongly in the necessity of unionization. Their
arguments were rather persuasive, the more so as they had
great affection for me, frequently fondled and embraced me,
and sometimes gave me pennies to buy chocolate-covered
walnuts or candy-coated apples on a stick. Mr. Silver did not
seem like a man who could dispense or even feel affection,
though he could easily inspire it. Perhaps his aversion to the
poor was really caused by this lack in him and by his confi-
dence and pride in himself. I thought that if all people had his
strength and ambition, there would be no need for unions. But
my sisters said that Mr. Silver sounded like an unfeeling and
despotic man, the kind that takes delight in grinding down the
poor. I had to admit to myself that there was some truth in this
estimate. Yet one had to see and know Mr. Silver to do him
justice. True, he was a despot. But I, who had had occasion to
experience his cruelty, could nevertheless appraise him as a
benevolent one. At any rate, I was perpetually torn between
Mr. Silver's dynamic conservatism and my own inclination
toward the liberalism of my sisters and the orators in Rutgers
Square.

From one of the speakers I learned one evening of the heroic
efforts of the workers in the East Side bakeries to form a
a union. The man exhorted us to aid these courageous souls
by refusing to eat non-union loaves. "Even a child can help
'the Cause,' " he cried, espying me in the group around him.

138 A LOST PARADISE

"When you get home tonight, little boy, look for the union
label," he said directly to me. I followed his injunction when
I got home, and I discovered that neither the rye loaf nor the
twist bread my mother had bought that day had the union
label pasted on them. When I told my sisters of the bakers'
plight, they agreed with me that we were honor bound to forgo
eating the unhallowed loaves. My mother, however, took the
position that as the bread was not returnable, our eating the
loaves could not possibly harm the embattled bakers. Hence-
forward, she assured us, she would take care to buy only
properly unionized bread. It seemed to me that more was in-
volved in the situation than expediency, and I was for con-
signing the offending loaves to the garbage pail or, if that was
sinful, for giving it to our Christian neighbors across the hall.
Not being subject to scruples of any kind, Christians, it was
commonly held, were prepared to eat everything. My mother
would not hear of such a foolish disposition of what she said
was perfectly good, non-returnable bread, and my sisters re-
luctantly agreed with her. I vowed that I would not touch the
loaves. But at supper that night my mother remarked that as
I had made my point, it was foolish to labor it by starving my-
self. She then cut and buttered for me a thick slice, which I
ate with the melancholy satisfaction of a pragmatic martyr.
The following evening I found the same passionate defender
of the revolutionary bakers addressing a meeting in Rutgers
Square. He recognized me and inquired whether I had acted
on his suggestion of the night before. When I told him I had,
he invited me to mount the podium and tell the crowd about it.
I climbed onto the box, but the unexpected invitation deprived
me for a while of my powers of speech. The encouragement of
my sponsor, however, and the friendliness of the crowd soon
exercised a reassuring effect on me, and I began to speak, at
first haltingly, then carried away by my subject and the
commanding position I had suddenly attained volubly and
with consideration for dramatic effect. I described with much

Mr. Silver, Individualist 139

detail my rushing home the night before and the discovery of
the unlabeled loaves in our bread box. Then, assembling my
entire family, I put before them with all the eloquence I could
command the aims and ideals of the insurgent bakers. My
family (I confessed to my audience) had always been reac-
tionary in thought and feeling, and my pleas, therefore, fell on
deaf ears. I adjured them not to touch the accursed loaves or, if
need be, give them to the Chreestchs. But they were adamant,
and at supper prepared to eat them. This I said I could not
countenance, and before my mother could reach for a knife, I
seized the loaves, ran out of the house, and dumped them in
some near-by garbage can. I spent the night on a truck in
Water Street, scorning to go home. And with the pathetic
prophecy that punishment would certainly await me on my re-
turn, I finished and stepped down. Then it was that I first
tasted the tremulous delight of applause. In that instant I
knew what Jacob P. Adler, Mrs. K. Lipzin, and my own
adored Bertha Kalich felt when the curtain descended on one
of their bravura scenes. If through some unforeseen obstacle I
was not to achieve my ambition to be a great actor, I would
certainly devote my life to the cause of downtrodden labor
and address crowds nightly in Rutgers Square and on the street
corners of the East Side.

Although I had distorted the events of the night before,
there was some truth in my assertion that my family held con-
servative views on political and economic subjects. At any
rate, my father held them, while my mother adopted for
diplomatic reasons a neutral attitude, though my sisters and I
felt that her sympathies were secretly with us. She and my
father read Der Tog, a conservative daily, while my sisters
took Der Forward, the organ of the liberals and Socialists.

My sister Molly, who loved poetry and could mimic the
declamatory style of the best tragic actresses on Grand Street
and the Bowery, memorized some of the poems that were
printed in Der Forward, which she recited to us when my

140 A LOST PARADISE

father was away from home. There was one poem I never
grew tired of hearing. It was a rather long poem, an epic of
suffering, hopelessness, and death which gave full scope to my
sister's histrionic talent. "In Grand Street, not far from
Suckerstein's store," she would begin in a deceptively con-
versational tone, but with due regard for its rhythm, proceed-
ing to describe a bent and seedy man who daily haunted that
busy spot and peddled matches to the indifferent and hurrying
passers-by. I cannot recall what transition the poet used to
bring this wretched man to the office of a prosperous but
conscientious doctor in the neighborhood. But, wild-eyed and
importunate, he broke into the doctor's study, and my sister's
voice reflected the agony and desperation of the intruder. "My
wife! You must hurry! There's no time to lose," my sister
intoned rhythmically in accents of anguished impatience. The
room became tense with the imminence of tragedy, though we
were all quite familiar with the story. At this the heart of the
sensitive physician melted. "The doctor snatched his hat and
coat," my sister said in an accelerated tempo, "And they
hurried on their way." When they arrived in the match-
vendor's dimly lit garret, the doctor took one look at the
wasted form on the bed and cried: "You murderer! What
have you done! Of undernourishment she's dead!" My sister's
supreme moment came with the final lines: "The husband
with a piercing shriek himself fell dead across the bed." The
tears were in her eyes, and she stood rigid, staring ahead, as
Mrs. K. Lipzin did in the theater at the end of each act. The
tableau my sister conjured up was as corporeal to me as if I
were seeing the tragic figures in the flesh. It seemed to me that
if Mr. Silver could hear my sister's dramatic reading of this
poem, his mind would be cleared of his misconceptions about
the poor and his heart would be softened toward them.

I used sometimes also to wonder whether my father's dog-
matic conservatism would be able to withstand the assault on
the emotions of the poetry in Der Forward. There seemed to

Mr. Silver, Individualist 141

be a good deal of poetry in the holy books he read or chanted.
His voice, too, as he prayed had a decided musical quality,
and he employed artfully a variety of tonal shades. The
Lamentations of Jeremiah were strangely emotional and dra-
matic as he sang them, and he intoned the Song of Solomon
and the Psalms of David so rapturously that they were moving
to hear even if one could not grasp their meaning. There could
be no question about the genuineness of his appreciation of the
poetry and music of the Bible and other sacred books. What
puzzled me was that this appreciation had no influence on his
character, opinions, and behavior. They brought him no
closer to a consideration of the misfortunes and problems of
the poor. Though he was not so lucid as Mr. Silver, he man-
aged to convey the same bias for capitalism the teacher could
so brilliantly rationalize.

He seemed never to consider anyone but himself. His dis-
pleasure with what he called my mother's extravagance which
was summed up in his oft-repeated "I need nothing, myself,"
could not be justified by the small contribution he made to the
support of the household. It is true that my mother spoiled
him, as she did me, and I was often jealous of the indulgence
she showed him. I could not conceive of a mother loving any-
one more than her children, especially more than an only son.
Love for children, especially for an only son, I was certain,
was rooted in nature. It was therefore immutable. Not so a
wife's love for her husband, which was ordained by nature to
be secondary. When a husband died, the wife after a suitable
period of mourning and quietude found herself another hus-
band. If she truly loved the first, how could she marry a
second? It followed therefore that sexual love was an in-
ferior, temporary emotion. On the other hand, when a mother
lost a son, any replacement was unthinkable. I had heard of
instances where mothers killed themselves rather than live on
without their sons. My oldest sister had even read in a novel
by a French author about a mother who sacrificed her life for

142 A LOST PARADISE

her daughter. For a daughter I thought that that was going a
little too far. In general I was certain that my mother loved
me in that absolute fashion. And when she quarreled with my
father, as happened frequently, I read in her bitter reproaches
the proof I was always seeking, that she did not love him as
much as she loved me or in the same way. For while she was
often angry with me, and even went so far as to slap me, she
was always remorseful immediately after and would kiss and
hug me and weep and call me her treasure and joy.

But there were times when I thought she showed a solici-
tude for my father exceeding the demands of secondary affec-
tion. Significantly enough, such instances always occurred on a
Friday. It was generally on Friday that my father chose to
take umbrage at something or other, and it was not long before
I discovered the reason.

He had struck up a friendship with a fellow member of his
synagogue, a venerable man with a long beard who lived with
his wife in a three-room tenement on Pike Street. Zalman
Reich was his name, and my father held him to be the most
fortunate of men. For Zalman Reich had been blessed with
six sons, all of whom were married and prosperous, and
generous to their father to a fault. Mr. and Mrs. Reich (their
offspring had united in dropping the "e" out of their surname),
my father repeatedly told us, lived in ease and luxury at the
expense of their children, who took great pride in their
parents' well-being and contentment. Because of the mu-
nificence of his sons, Zalman had unlimited leisure at his
disposal, and he spent most of his time at the synagogue,
where he was greatly respected for his readiness to bid high
for the privilege of holding the Torah and to purchase the
most expensive seat on Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur.
My father never tired of expounding the virtues of his friend
and calling attention to the never-ending generosity of the
sons.

The latest proof of their solicitude for Zalman Reich made a

Mr. Silver, Individualist 143

deep impression on my father, who came home from syna-
gogue one day bursting with the news. He could hardly wait
to wash and dry his hands to tell us. "Some men have all the
luck," he said, looking accusingly at me. He then turned to
my mother. "What do you think those boys have done for
Zalman now? They have made him a present of an operation
on his left eye, the one that has the cataract. Zalman told the
whole congregation about it today. They've engaged the best
eye-doctor, and it will cost twenty dollars! That's what I call
children!" I looked abashed and ate in silence. The name of
Zalman Reich was always on my father's lips, and his visits
to the Reichs grew more and more frequent.

One Friday when I came home from school, I knew by the
unhappy expression of my mother's face and by my father's
calculated, punitive silence that there had been a quarrel. I
saw my father take his prayer shawl and phylacteries from a
bureau drawer, wrap them in an old newspaper, and tie the
bundle with a string. He then put on his hat and coat and, with
the bundle under his arm, stalked out of the house without a
word of explanation or farewell. At supper time he had not re-
turned. My mother, unable to conceal her anxiety, sent me
to the synagogue to see if he had loitered there. I found no
one at the synagogue but the beadle, who told me that my
father had gone off with Zalman Reich. This information
mollified my mother, but she ate little at supper. When I went
to bed he had not yet come home. Early the next morning my
mother woke me. She appeared much agitated. "Get dressed,"
she commanded, "and run to Zalman Reich's. Tell your father
to come home. Tell him I'm sorry." At the Reichs' I found my
father alone in the kitchen wearing his prayer shawl and
phylacteries. When he paused for a moment in his prayers, I
delivered my message. He made no reply, and I ran home.
Toward evening my mother wrapped two pieces of gefilte fish
and half of a twist bread in a sheet of newspaper and bade me
go again to the Reichs' and deliver the package to my father.

144 A LOST PARADISE

Again I found him alone. He opened the bundle and saw what
it contained. He showed no surprise, but sat down at the table
and ate the fish with his usual relish.

On Sunday morning he returned home and was received by
my mother with, to me, shocking manifestations of remorse
and delight. For days after, I found myself neglected by her,
her mind only on the problem of avoiding a repetition of his
flight from home. I could not now deny to myself that she
felt an unnatural love for him. I lay awake suffering agonies of
jealousy and wondering how she could prefer him to me. For
aside from my being her own flesh and blood, her only son, I
knew myself to be kind and affectionate (except for a few In-
consequential exhibitions of willfulness), and could feel pity
for others; whereas my father was self-centered and unfeeling,
and had, like Mr. Silver, no use for the poor. I had to admit
he was handsome, but was that sufficient to make up for his
outbursts of temper or his long, apparently premeditated
silences, which were even harder to bear? Could it be that I
had misread the character of my mother, that she had not
really merited the love I had trustingly lavished on her? I
determined to withdraw my love from her entirely and give
it all to rny older sister, Hannah. Hannah, I had no reason to
doubt, loved me and no one else. She was lovely to look at, and
had such a beautiful voice that I could not concentrate on my
homework when she sang old Russian songs, and even the
next-door neighbors refrained from rapping on the wall in
protest. Once in a while a suitor would appear. But thus far
she had shown no preference for anyone but me.

A few days after my father's memorable flight my mother
became her old self again and I found myself once more the
center of her life. I was now, as in pre-flight days, the "apple
of her eye," her "Benjamin," her "staff," and her "rod." I
decided I had mistaken a momentary aberration for a funda-
mental change in character, and I submitted at first warily and
later unreservedly to her embraces. Only on Fridays I was

Mr. Silver, Individualist 145

aware of a certain faint aloofness and reserve in her attitude
toward me, a preoccupation with something that I felt had no
relation to me at all. But her indifference to me vanished the
moment my father came home from synagogue. She met him at
the door with a basin of water and a towel. And when he had
silently washed and dried his hands and taken his place at the
head of the table, preparatory to saying a prayer over the pair
of twist breads in front of him, she hovered near him, poised
to interpret his peremptory gestures and wordless sounds; for
piety forbade the use of speech until the prayer waj over and
bread had been broken. In those suspended, critical moments
my father, perhaps finding the salt missing, would point with
his right forefinger dramatically at the loaves and make im-
patient sounds like "M-m. M-m." And my mother would try
to guess what he meant and offer him one thing after another,
while his voice rose in pitch more and more irately as she suc-
cessively guessed wrong. At length the process of elimination
would point to the saltcellar, and the ordeal would be over.
My sisters and I always watched this performance with re-
sentment. I wondered if Zalman Reich behaved so im-
periously toward his wife. I determined that when I grew up
I would force my mother to rebel against her husband's high-
handedness, whether she loved him or not. There was, too,
such a thing as divorce. Many couples we knew threatened to
divorce each other, though none ever carried out the threat.
At any rate, someday I would insist on a divorce. I would then
find out once and for all which of us she really loved.

In the meantime I would dedicate myself to the important
task of making the world a better place to live in for the people
around me. With the end of the school term and my promotion
to the next grade, the influence of Mr. Silver's jaunty con-
servatism began to wane, and in the summer vacation it dis-
appeared altogether. Night after night I made impromptu
speeches from crates or the back ends of wagons. And the
more I spoke and the more I was applauded for my impas-

146 A LOST PARADISE

sioned delivery, the more certain I was that the workers of the
world must either unite or perish. There came a moment,
however, when I wavered between socialism and anarchism.
One night, what I thought was a Socialist meeting turned out
to be an anarchist rally. I had heard vaguely about anarchism, a
philosophy even more abhorrent to Mr. Silver and my father
than socialism. But now, as the speaker explained it, it seemed
to hold greater promise for a better world for the poor and
suffering than socialism. Indeed, socialism could be con-
sidered only as a steppingstone to the ideal of human existence
which anarchism promised. When, with my help, the workers
of the world had united and lost their chains, I would then ex-
amine the philosophy of anarchism in greater detail. At the
moment the possibilities for man appeared limitless.

CHAPTER EIGHT

We Were Eight"

Q

HCJR family was presently reduced to eight by
the marriage of my sisters Gertie and Lea. To everybody's
astonishment, Gertie married her uncle (and mine), my fa-
ther's younger brother Sam, who had recently emigrated from
Ula. Like ourselves, Sam had come to America at the sugges-
tion of Mr. Gold. This time the amiable junk-dealer made
good his promise of a job. He gave Sam the spare room in his
house in Passaic, staked him to a second-hand utility wagon
and an aging horse, and set him up as an itinerant peddler of
household wares. Sam spent his Sundays in our house, and
after supper Gertie would accompany him to the Madison
Street car, the first of several conveyances, not counting the
Duane Street ferry, which relayed him back to Passaic. One
Sunday the two left the house as usual, but reappeared half an
hour later and announced that they had decided to get married.

148 A LOST PARADISE

Much to my surprise, my father saw no objection in their
close family relationship. To me it seemed ludicrous for two
people who knew each other so intimately to marry. On the
other hand, the marriage had the advantage of being unusual,
and I hastened to spread the news among my playmates on the
street. None of my friends could match so sensational an
event. I could now boast that my oldest sister possessed a
husband and uncle, and I an uncle and a brother-in-law, all in
one person.

The marriage of my sister Lea was less sensational, though
equally unexpected. Lea worked in a ladies' garment factory
on Canal Street and, except for attendance at night school,
generally spent her evenings at home. She was small and
dumpy, had a mass of blond hair and a pug nose, and was shy
and self-conscious with strangers. We were therefore sur-
prised to hear that she had been seen walking on East Broad-
way with an unknown man several nights after supper. The
rumor finally reached my father, who made a scene about it
one morning at breakfast, demanding to be told what manner
of man would go walking with a presumably respectable girl
without first presenting himself to her family. What was
even worse, his daughter and her unidentified beau had been
observed sitting together on our stoop! Nice people, my father
said witheringly, did not sit on stoops, where they became the
subjects of the ribald speculation of the world as it sauntered
by. Lea, weeping, confessed that she had been walking out
with a man she had met some time ago at night school. They
had also sat on the stoop once, but only by reason of fatigue.
The man's name was Mannie Mannie Kalb. He was a house-
painter, and he lived at home with his father and mother.
Pressed for further details, Lea confessed that he stammered
slightly and had little hair. But against these unimportant
defects she claimed for him the virtues of industry and good
nature, and for his parents piety and respectability. She hadn't
asked Mannie up because she was afraid his stammer would

"Then We Were Eight" 149

subject him to ridicule. My father, though alive to the neces-
sity of marrying off Lea to the first respectable suitor (re-
spectability and a job were all that he demanded) , listened im-
passively and gave her an ultimatum. She must either produce
Mannie Kalb for inspection forthwith or drop him alto-
gether.

Two or three evenings later Mannie paid us a formal visit
and was at once subjected to the closest scrutiny. His two de-
ficiencies were decidedly more marked than Lea had indi-
cated, both appearing to have reached completion. His stam-
mer, now aggravated by nervousness, made conversation with
him almost impossible and much embarrassed Lea, who vali-
antly and (for her) rather defiantly attempted repeatedly to
help him out in his struggle with some particularly refractory
word. Though I could hardly keep from laughing at his gro-
tesque, frantic efforts to make himself understood, a simple
pathos about his helplessness drew me toward him. All the
same, my mother was obliged to make occult, threatening
signs to me from behind the unfortunate suitor's chair to ob-
serve decorum. And somehow, by means of a variety of facial
contortions and desperate gesticulation Mannie Kalb managed
to project a naive and kind personality that bore out my sister's
opinion of him. No one laughed even during the critical mo-
ments when he seemed irrevocably sunk in unintelligibility.
As she usually did in moments of crisis, my mother brought in
tea and cakes. Mannie, grateful for the respite, drank glass
after glass, and so did the rest of us, hardly knowing what else
to do. Suddenly Mannie pushed his glass aside, rose, advanced
to my father, and tried to speak. It was a long and painful at-
tempt. He had reached a climax of incoherence when Lea,
moved by shame and pity, hastily took over and interpreted
the furious struggle for expression we had witnessed as Man-
nie' s announcement of their engagement. At this intelligence,
my father, wasting no time on Mannie, addressed himself to
Lea and drew from her such details about the state of her

150 A LOST PARADISE

lover's finances and kindred matters as might determine our
family's attitude to the proposed alliance. Satisfied at last on
all points, he blessed his daughter, shook hands with the per-
spiring, happy Mannie and suggested a speedy meeting be-
tween himself and the senior Kalb for the discussion of ar-
rangements for the wedding.

The elder Kalb, while a good man with an unsullied record
for piety, was, like his son, a house-painter and therefore at a
disadvantage as a m'chutan (in-law). One need not be ashamed
of a m'chutan who was in business for himself, one who, for
example, ran a butcher's shop, a shoe store (a cobbler, like a
tailor, was taboo, as in the old country; tailors, however, were
fortunately nonexistent in America, where everyone wore
ready-made clothes), a "men's furnishings" store, a kosher
delicatessen. But one could be proud of a m'chutan who was
engaged in "big" business, an employer of labor on a grand
scale, say a proprietor of a sweatshop with five or ten em-
ployees, or even a "boss" carpenter or painter with two or
three men under him. One could hardly boast in the synagogue
about a m'chutan who was only a day laborer, or bring him
around to meet the congregation. Yet (as my mother pointed
out to him) my father was in no position to talk about kovod
(honor). Lea had no dowry. She was, in fact, penniless. And
while dowries were less important in America than they were
"at home," a man could hardly be blamed for expecting
"something" to go with his bride. Granted that Mannie was
no longer young, and that his defects were serious enough to
decrease his value in the marriage market, nevertheless as a
man he was worth "something." And if he had had the sense
to place himself in the hands of a shadchen, he might have
fetched a decent sum, though perhaps not a fortune. My
mother recalled to my father the unfortunate case of her own
sister's daughter Beylke, in Russia. For two years now
Beylke's marriage had been held up for lack of a sufficient
dowry. My mother had a stack of letters from her sister in

"Then We Were Eight" 1 5 1

Vitebsk relating to Beylke's still unsettled position. Beylke
was in no sense an objectionable creature. Yet the only suitor
the shadchen was able to scare up for her demanded a dowry
of one hundred rubles. He had finally come down to ninety,
and it was at that figure that both he and his mother took their
rock-bottom stand. My aunt's frantic efforts to raise that sum
had so far netted only fifty rubles (ten of which my mother
had somehow obtained and contributed without, of course, the
knowledge of my father) . In her last letter, the distracted
mother had written that she had made a supreme effort to
effect a downward revision of the impossible sum. But the
suitor's mother remained heartlessly, even godlessly ob-
durate. "I'd rather see him rot," was her final crushing answer.
And there the matter now stood.

My father took the hint and accepted the situation with
what grace he could command. He did not invite the senior
Kalb to his synagogue, but accepted his invitation to dinner,
though not before assuring himself of the house-painter's
strict observance of the dietary laws. The invitation included
the rest of the family. Molly and I, who had a propensity to
laugh at everything, were warned to behave. The dinner went
off without a hitch. The senior Kalb offered my father the
head of the table, which my father accepted as his due and as
the symbol of the house-painter's understanding and ac-
ceptance of a secondary role in his future relationship with our
family. Mrs. Kalb had cooked a very large dinner, the climax
of which was a great chunk of sweet-and-sour meat. It was my
father's favorite dish next to gefilte fish, and he looked pleased,
unaware that Lea had given her future mother-in-law the hint.

Mrs. Kalb, a large, fat woman, resplendent in a long black
taffeta dress, and wearing a small gold watch attached to a
gold chain long enough to encompass her ample neck twice,
served the meal and, like all housewives, did not sit down at
the table until the dessert, of stewed prunes and dried apricots,
had tapered off the repast. My mother owned no jewelry ex-

152 A LOST PARADISE

cept an imitation mother-of-pearl pin in the shape of a fish,
with a tiny black bead for an eye, which she wore at her throat
on ceremonious occasions. The scaly pink fish now appeared
insignificant alongside Mrs. Kalb's watch and chain. And
when Mrs. Kalb finally sat down at the table, my mother sub-
tly established her own disdain of worldly possessions and her
cultural superiority over her hostess by casual references to
her eminent father, Reb Shnayer Tresskanov of Vitebsk, and
the love of austerity he had inculcated in his children. Mr.
Kalb called my father "Reb," and Mannie, more at ease in his
own house, stammered less and succeeded in telling, albeit
with a certain difficulty, a joke relating to the foibles of house-
painters. When we were ready to take our leave, the elder
Kalb produced a bottle of whisky and two long, thin silver
goblets, gold-faced on the inside. The two machutonim had
one drink apiece, my father saying: "Sholom aleichein" and
Mr. Kalb answering: "Aleichem sholom" This ceremonious
exchange made the engagement of Lea and Mannie official.

I had hoped that at least one of my sisters would marry into
a family rich enough to afford an elaborate wedding at
Pythagoras Hall, with a string of hired carriages to take us
there. It was true that Pythagoras Hall was only half a block
from our house, but I knew that proximity to Pythagoras Hall
did not deter affluent or ostentatious families residing close
to it from conducting their weddings on a scale that imposed
hired carriages. The Hirsch wedding was a case in point. Mr.
Hirsch lived even closer to Pythagoras Hall than we did, but
when he married off his eldest daughter, the wedding party
went in five open carriages from the Hirsch residence on East
Broadway through Rutgers Street, turned left at Henry
Street, turned left again at Jefferson Street into East Broad-
way, and drew up, as if after a long journey, at Pythagoras
Hall. It was a most impressive cortege, and crowds of
pedestrians, myself among them, followed the slow-moving
vehicles. People watched us from the sidewalks and from

"Thm We Were Eight" 153

windows, admiring the rented white satin dress of the bride
and the shiny stovepipe hats of the groom and the more im-
portant male relatives. Having cleverly melted into a party of
the children of invited guests, I slipped unnoticed into
Pythagoras Hall, which presented a vision of opulence. The
ceremony took place in a richly decorated room, I standing on
a chair to get a better view. Under an elaborately embroidered
chuff ah (canopy) of red velvet, a stout, bearded rabbi in a
tight-fitting surtout with velvet lapels intoned the service in a
strong falsetto and with many coloratura embellishments of
his own. First the rabbi addressed himself to the bride and
groom in turn. But soon after, intoxicated with his own
virtuosity, he looked away and gazed at the ceiling as he sang,
like an artist at a recital glorying in his mastery of his art. At
the end of the rabbi's eloquent performance, the bride was ro-
tated around the groom several times. The rabbi then lifted the
bridal veil, and the bride touched the rim of the wineglass that
he held out to her. The groom sipped next; then the ring was
placed on the bride's finger. The room was now hushed as the
rabbi, carefully wrapping the wineglass in a napkin and placing
it on the floor, crushed it loudly underfoot.

The crunching noise set off great shouts of "Mazoltov!
(Congratulations!)," the machutonim embraced, the violin,
cornet, drum, and piano, which had been waiting for this very
signal, broke into "Choson, Kaloh, mazoltov! (Groom, bride,
congratulations!)." The married pair sailed away in a dance
across the length of the room, between two long lines of
guests formed to provide a narrow lane for the exhibition.
These favored guests clapped their hands in rhythm with the
music, sang and laughed and called the bride and groom by
their first names. Having initiated the revels, the couple re-
tired to throne-like chairs at one end of the room to watch
their guests cavort and to receive the personal felicitations of
those able to make their way to them through the great press
of celebrators. Strangely enough, the groom seemed to be the

154 A L ST PARADISE

more popular of the pair, especially with the male guests, who
flocked around him and whispered in his ear such things as
made him laugh and blush. When the general exuberance had
begun to subside, an impressive-looking master of ceremonies
stood up on a chair, motioned the drummer to execute a roll,
loud and long, and in the ensuing silence announced in a voice
of thunder that supper was ready in the great room downstairs
and ordered the gentlemen to escort their ladies below to the
strains of a grand march that the orchestra would immediately
strike up. Led by the bride and groom, with the machutonim
following behind, a procession of couples formed and marched
to the quick step of the grand march. But not for long; for
some of the guests, overeager to get to the banquet hall first,
broke ranks and ran ahead. In a moment the orderly march
had become a stampede, with the children (myself among
them) snaking their way to the forefront and rushing down the
wooden steps with a great clatter. Down in the dining-room
confusion reigned for a long time. People who had rushed to
seat themselves near the bride and groom had to be forcibly
dislodged by the master of ceremonies, who held a paper with
the seating arrangement and could not be swerved from his
determination to fill the long bridal table according to the
strictest protocol.

The supper was the most varied and lavish I had thus far
encountered either at home or at the house of relatives. For,
besides such common hors d'oeuvres as herring (this herring, to
be sure, was "schmaltz" and therefore a cut above the tough,
salty variety we could afford at home), raw onions, malinki
(black olives), helzel (stuffed neck), new dill pickles, and
chopped liver, there was chicken fricassee as the main dish
and crown of the repast. I had known chicken exclusively in its
austere boiled state, garnished with whole, waterlogged
onions or accompanied by masses of noodles, the whole swim-
ming in an overgenerous supply of broth. But chicken fricassee
was so special a form as to make it seem improbable that it

"Then We Were Eight" 155

could ever be served in any home, however pretentious. It was
known by reputation to most of the children of the neighbor-
hood, but only a few had ever come face to face with it. I
could now testify that it deserved its fame. A huge earthen-
ware casserole was placed on our table. Its cover being re-
moved, a soft aromatic vapor rose from the interior and en-
gaged our nostrils. And inside the vast dish lay who knows
how many golden chickens in ruins, in innumerable pieces,
large and small, like a scientific assemblage of the parts of pre-
historic creatures. Breasts, wings, legs, giblets, gizzards
languished in glistening, brownish gravy in inviting disorder!
The supper might well have come to an end with the fricassee.
But there followed a large variety of honeyed desserts and,
for a finish, piping-hot noodle soup. Wine was served only at
the bridal table, where toasts seemed never-ending, except
during the chicken-fricassee course, when a silence fell on the
room and only the sounds of chicken bones being crunched
and the smacking of lips could be heard.

At one point during the dessert the master of ceremonies
opened and read aloud a telegram that had just arrived. I was
astonished at the extravagance of the sender, for telegrams
were too costly for joyful occasions. The message was from a
near relation of the bride residing in faraway Baltimore. It was
both ingenious and witty. As all telegrams were restricted
(I believed) to ten words, I marveled at the sender's clever
choice of words. Indeed, the restriction had the positive effect
of challenging his ingenuity. It would have taken, ordinarily,
twice that number of words to express sentiments so various
and complex. "Hundred years happiness bride groom may
troubles be little ones." Such was the message which was
translated into Yiddish for the benefit of the elderly machu-
tonim and guests combining neatly the obvious with a
witty play on words that brought laughter and applause from
everyone there, even from the children.

This was the kind of wedding I had hoped for. And on

156 A LOST PARADISE

first beholding Mannie Kalb I felt that there might be a
chance that his deficiencies would be counterbalanced by a
corresponding affluence, and that he and Lea would be married
In Pythagoras Hall. But that hope was soon dispelled. For
Lea assured us that Mrs. Kalb's gold watch and chain repre-
sented the sum of the family's savings. Indeed, the economic
situation of the Kalbs was little better than our own. Perhaps
their prospects were better than ours, for they invested heavily
in lottery tickets, buying at regular intervals as many as three
at a time at fifty cents apiece. They had been buying lottery
tickets steadily for three years, and by the law of averages
they were due soon to win five hundred dollars. In the mean-
time they were in no position to stage an expensive and
fashionable wedding. So my sister's marriage took place one
Sunday morning in our house before a limited number of
relatives and friends. Though resigned to a small wedding at
home, Lea pleaded with my father for a white satin wedding
dress, veil and slippers to match, the rental of which would
cost seven and a half dollars. My mother could not but protest
at such extravagance in a man who eternally preached
economy. Nevertheless, my father yielded to Lea's plea, and
as he raised the money by himself, my mother's objection
had little force. I was glad not only for Lea's sake, but for my
own. For while I could not boast to my friends about a
wedding in Pythagoras Hall, I still could talk in a casual way
about my sister's wedding outfit. Certainly the dress was in
every way as fine as the one Miss Hirsch had worn. It may
even have been the very same, for it came from the most
patronized wedding outfitters on Essex Street. I had seen one
exactly like it on the life-size dummy bride which, holding on
to the arm of a life-size dummy groom, stood, smiling and
radiant, behind the huge plate-glass window of the shop.

On the pressing invitation of her parents-in-law Lea
moved into their tenement on Rivington Street. There she
resided for some time in "idleness," claiming that she was not

"Then We Were Eight" 1 57

permitted to "touch a thing" except to do her own room and
her own and Mannie's laundry. Such indulgence was unusual.
But Mannie was an only child, and the elder Mrs. Kalb, when
called upon to justify Lea's luxurious idleness, laughingly said
that nothing had changed in her house except that she had
acquired a boarder in the shape of a daughter-in-law. Mrs.
Kalb's gain was also ours. We now had more room and the
use of still another extra blanket when the weather grew cold.
Also, the withdrawal of a member of my father's side of the
family left the opposing factions less unbalanced than they
had been heretofore. Tension still continued to be felt like a
faint but ever-threatening undercurrent. But Lea's marriage
and absence held in check for a time the deep enmities that
divided our house.

CHAPTER NINE

M

.ORE and more I took my stand with my
mother, Hannah, and Molly against my father and his children.
The issues became increasingly clear-cut. My two sisters
(and my mother, in an inactive way) represented culture,
enlightenment, and pure affection. The rest of the family
symbolized ignorance, conformity, and selfishness. At the
time, I was only vaguely familiar with words like "culture"
and " enlightenment, 77 but I gathered from the reverent inflec-
tion my sisters gave to them that they were desirable things
with which the "enemy" could have no connection. On my
own I compared my sisters' sensitivity to nature and beauty
with the "enemy's" bland indifference to everything not
material. I could not recall that my father or any of his chil-
dren had ever noticed the color of the sky (there were beau-
tiful sunsets to be seen from our front window) ; but Hannah

Hannah 1 59

and Molly were quick to notice and call to my attention the
changing beauty of the heavens and the streets.

There was the clock tower of R. Hoe & Co., Inc., the
printing-press factory, visible from our window, though half
a mile away, close to the East River. One early summer
evening Hannah, leaning out of the window, called to me to
come and see R. Hoe & Co., Inc., floating in the sky, and
when I looked I saw she had spoken the truth; for there in-
deed was R. Hoe & Co., Inc., or at any rate the clock tower,
hanging unattached in the sky in the far distance. Nothing
of the building was to be seen except the tower a faultless
blue sky above it, with a single limpid star, and below it creep-
ing darkness that obliterated the familiar sky line. Seen in the
light of Hannah's description, it was a breath-taking sight.
Never again would I look at R. Hoe's merely to tell the time.
I began to feel the gradations of light and shade in the air and
on objects that in themselves I had used to think prosaic.

One late afternoon I ran into the house from play to get a
piece of bread and butter. My father sat at the kitchen table
absorbed in a volume of Hebrew commentaries. I had seen
him in the same position often enough, but this time I was
struck by the picture he made in the twilit room, his face and
beard in shadow, the page of the book before him alone reflect-
ing the sad, attenuated light that suffused the soot-covered
kitchen window. I felt an ache in the region of my heart as I
looked. My father was beautiful for the moment, and the
shadowy outline of his brooding form and hazy features
seemed the plastic symbol of noble melancholy.

Molly, while not so delicately responsive to beauty as
Hannah, appreciated its more obvious manifestations. Her
reactions were passionate where Hannah's were diffidently
poetic. She took me on an excursion one summer morning, to
show me and share with me the beauties of the countryside.
To embark on an excursion was a difficult undertaking,
requiring untold patience and fortitude. The excursion was run

l6o A LOST PARADISE

free for the benefit (I believe) of the East Side poor by a
patriarchal Tammany Hall city administration. Once a
fortnight during the summer a dilapidated ferryboat filled
with as many persons as it would hold left the foot of Mont-
gomery Street and plodded heavily, uneasily, and sagging to
one side with its overload of people, up the East River, into
Long Island Sound, and after three or four hours pulled up at
some rural wharf. There the passengers were disembarked and
let loose in the adjoining fields for an hour, after which
several long blasts of the ship's whistle brought them back
and the boat began its homeward journey.

So many people, especially children and their mothers,
desired to go on an excursion that by five in the morning a
queue many blocks long had already formed at the wharf.
Molly and I were among them. We stood, holding our lunch
of bread and butter and pickles in a paper bag, from sunrise to
ten o'clock, the hour of the ferryboat's departure. The sun,
at first dispassionately spreading light, soon warmed to its
primary task of heating the cobblestones under our feet,
luridly spotlighting the warehouses behind us and scorching
our heads and faces. Before sailing-time many elderly people
collapsed and were helped by the younger and tougher-
fibered excursionists to shady stoops and alleyways, their
places in the queue having first been guaranteed them. At ten
the gates of the pier were opened and in a few minutes the
boat was tightly packed with noisy children, screaming
babies, distracted mothers, and feeble, bewildered grand-
parents. The excursionists outnumbered the seating capacity
of the boat to so large an extent that for every seated person,
at least five stood up. We marveled that the boat did not
overturn (it was to overturn one fateful morning, with a
great loss of life!). Nevertheless it was an excursion, and we
enjoyed, tightly wedged as we were, the sea air, the passing
steamers and sailboats, and the prospect of spending an hour
in the country. When we landed, Molly bade me run with her

Hannah 1 6 1

ahead of the crowd toward a distant copse where we might be
alone. There we rolled on the grass, lay flat on our backs, and
watched the lazy, cottony clouds melt into one another. I
could see that Molly was determined to make the most of the
hour allotted us, and her enthusiasm was contagious. She
danced around, did handsprings, and for a few minutes stood
still with her face turned to the sky and her arms outstretched,
inhaling and exhaling noisily and challengingly. I did the
same. Then we ate our lunch in great contentment. Four hours
later we were back in Montgomery Street, tired and per-
spiring from standing up during the entire trip back. But we
had been on an excursion, and the hour we spent on the shores
of Long Island (or was it Connecticut?) became an enchanting
memory for us both.

The "other" side of the family knew no such physical and
aesthetic raptures. Its members, with the exception of Albert
and Gertie, were content with the briefest of educations.
Writing and reading elementary English were their acknowl-
edged goal. Gertie's espousal had automatically placed her
beyond any need to try even for this limited objective. Albert
was forging ahead so rapidly in his business of carpentering
and building that his ignorance of the English alphabet could
hardly be regarded as a hindrance to success. His faith in his
dynamism was so complete that on discovering that a cross
constituted a legal signature, he abandoned a previous deter-
mination to learn to sign his name. And it was only when he
was made to realize the anomaly of a devout Jew like himself
adopting the very symbol of Christianity as his signature that
he undertook the, to him, distasteful labor of mastering the
spelling of his name.

For Hannah and Molly night-school courses in English
constituted the gateway to English literature. They had read
much in Russian in the old country, and they continued reading
Russian books in the new. On the third floor of the Educational
Alliance, on the corner of East Broadway and Jefferson

l62 A LOST PARADISE

Street, was the Aguilar Public Library, where books in all
languages might be borrowed for two weeks at no cost. One
could not, alas, browse in the Aguilar Free Library. A floor to
ceiling partition kept the borrowers from all access to the
books that crowded the numberless shelves behind it. Two
small openings punctured this solid wall, and two ladies in
white shirtwaists and starched collars stood behind these
apertures. To one of them one handed a slip of paper on which
was written the title of the book one wished to borrow and a
half-dozen alternates should the desired volume be out.

Once a fortnight I was my sisters' messenger to the Aguilar
Library, bearing their choice of books on a folded sheet
of paper. At home I would ask my sisters to tell me the
stories of the books I brought them. In the window of
Malkin's bookstore I had seen the same books in English
translations, and now I learned that in Dostoievsky's Crime
and Punishment the hero, Raskolnikov, was a good man
driven by poverty to murder his landlady. Tolstoy's War and
Peace and Anna Karenina resisted all my sisters' attempts to
extract a story that might intrigue me, and I lost interest in
Goncharov's Oblomov when I heard that this so-called hero
was simply a lazy man to whom nothing whatever happened,
who was content to lie on his bed or on a couch all day long.
But one day I brought home from the library Victor Hugo's
Les Miserabks in English translation. On my way I had opened
the book to look for illustrations, and the only one in it
represented a terrifyingly uncouth man on a park bench glaring
at a small boy who stood near by in a supplicating attitude.
Not as yet having read the book, Molly, for whom I brought
it, could not identify for me this pictured encounter.

A few nights later I was awakened from sleep by the angry
shouts of my father. He had himself been awakened by a
sound of sobbing. Rising and going into the kitchen, he had
discovered Molly with a book in her hand reading by the light
of a low-burning gas-jet and crying to herself. She was reading

Hannah 163

Les Mlserables and had become so absorbed in the story of
Fantine (she told me the next day) that she could not bear to
pot the book down and go to bed. At the point where the
wretched Fantine sells her beautiful blond hair to pay for the
board and lodging of her little daughter, Cosette, Molly could
not repress her sobs. And now my father raged at her extrava-
gant, unauthorized use of expensive illuminating gas, and in
turn roused the entire household. His anger at length sub-
siding, he left the kitchen vowing that he would see to it that
no "foolish" books would ever again enter "his" house.
Nevertheless I continued my fortnightly visits to the Aguilar
Library. My sisters read the books I brought back at times
when my father was away from home. And they concealed
them in the only safe place in the house, under his own bed,
where rny father never looked.

I liked to think that my two sisters and I were a kind of
secret society like those existing in Chinatown, but bound to-
gether by xsthetic and poetic perceptions that the "other"
side of the family both envied and decried. My mother's role
was that of an ignorant but sympathetic adherent of "our"
side, whose duty it was to alert us to the plans of the enemy
and to side with us openly in the event of hostilities. Yet
this very close alliance was not without its own frictions.
Indeed, at times it seemed that the association itself would
not bear the strain of the bickerings of its members and would
eventually atrophy as a fighting force. In her impatience with
my numerous peccadilloes, my mother would often say
things that would incite me to retaliation. I guessed shrewdly
that the most effective form of revenge was to remain out of
doors long after my accustomed bedtime. And many nights I
had the satisfaction (not unmixed with regret) of watching
her, from my place of concealment behind an ash can, roam
the street in search of me.

My sisters, too, sometimes fought with each other and
with me. Hannah's disposition, except in moments of wrath,

164 A LOST PARADISE

was angelic. Yet I found a perverse pleasure in teasing her
and causing her discomfort and even pain. On Sunday morn-
ings Hannah worked at home manufacturing "cases," the
paper containers for the insertion of tobacco later.

As I stood behind her chair one Sunday morning watching
the cases pile up in a heap, I took it into my head to tease her
about Mr. Chaikin, a gentleman who had recently taken to
calling on her. I pretended I was talking to myself. "She
might just as well marry Mr. Chaikin," I began sotto voce,
"for everybody knows she's sweet on him." I waited for some
reaction, but Hannah went on producing cases quickly and
silently. I tried again with a statement about Mr. Chaikin's
perfervid attentions to her. This time I drew a response of a
kind calculated to infuriate me. Hannah began humming a
snatch of a song in Yiddish the words of which I knew were
aimed at me. "A dog," she sang, without retarding the speed
of her work, "may bay at the moon . . . but he remains a
dog!" As she sang the final word, I took a long breath and
suddenly shot it out at the large, foamy pile of cases. The
feathery things floated from the table in all directions, some
to the ceiling, to which they clung effortlessly, but most to the
floor. At the same time I made for the door and flew down the
stairs two at a time, with Hannah in enraged pursuit behind
me. But by the time she reached the street, I had already disap-
peared from view.

When I felt myself safe, remorse gripped me, as it always
did after an "incident" with any of the three persons I loved
most in the world, and soon I was back home, resolved to
make what amends I could. Hannah was on all fours on the
floor attempting to reassemble the elusive cases. I got down
beside her and helped restore the pile to the table. Then,
overcome with shame, I flung my arms around her and said I
was sorry and implored her never to sing that hateful song
again in my presence. She held me close and promised to
abandon the song forever. "Don't you know," she murmured,

Hannah 165

"I love you more than anyone in the world!" All the same,
sometime later probably after some grave provocation on
my part Hannah forgot her promise and began to sing the
dreadful phrase again. This time I did not think of revenge.
Instead I began to cry and Hannah stopped short before the
offensive word and begged forgiveness, which I, through my
tears, magnanimously granted.

Except for these infrequent distressing episodes, my rela-
tions with Hannah were on a lofty plane. Young as I was, I
could not help being aware of the difference between her
nature and that of any other person I knew, not excepting
Molly and my mother. Her features were disarmingly open,
yet delicately troubled with some hidden concern. She was
long-suffering and kind, where Molly was impatient and
openly resentful. She responded almost automatically to all
appeals, and as something was always happening to the people
we knew, Hannah was continually on the go. The most un-
fortunate among these was my mother's third cousin, Chaie
Rive Flayshig. Chaie Rive lived with her husband, Nochum,
and her little twin sons in a distant section of Brooklyn, where
rents were cheaper than on the East Side. The Flayshigs were
so desperately poor that by comparison we were rich. At
least the Flayshigs regarded us as rich. Nochum was a short,
skinny man who had no particular trade and only infrequently
found anything to do. He referred to himself as a printer,
though it was never discovered on what grounds. His wife,
who knew better, chose not to challenge this statement, at
least in public. He was very garrulous and, I thought, alto-
gether convincing when he expatiated on the vicissitudes of the
printing trade. The trade, It appeared, was riddled with
intrigue and suicidally bent on keeping the best-qualified men
out. I wondered that my mother thought him lazy and shift-
less. But Chaie Rive, although perpetually on the brink of
starvation, defended him passionately against all attacks,
blaming the inequalities of the American economic system for

l66 A LOST PARADISE

her misfortunes. And, indeed, no outsider listening to Nochum
would have any suspicion of the Flayshigs' economic plight.

Nochum had a passion for telling jokes and anecdotes of a
humorous nature, even at inopportune moments. He would
show up at our house looking seedy and unshaven, but genial
and breezy in manner, and ask if we were familiar with the
latest story about McKinley. We weren't, of course, and he
would proceed to tell it slowly, like a well-to-do householder
relaxing on a Sunday morning with congenial friends or
relatives. I found his sallies amusing and his manner rather
charming. But with the exception of Fannie the rest of our
family tolerated him with impatience and abused him behind
his back as a heartless, moronic husband and father. To be
sure, Nochum never came out openly with the real reason for
his visits; but we learned to know that his appearance at our
house invariably presaged some misfortune at home, some
illness or accident, or the imminence of starvation or eviction.

The colloquy that would eventually disclose his troubles
would be devious and would consume precious time. My
mother, by way of a beginning, might suggest a glass of tea.
Nochum would give her a winning smile and say: "Why not?
A glass of tea never hurt anyone, as the would-be choson
[groom] said to the would-be kaloh [bride] when she plied
him with tea. I suppose you know that story after the young
man had consumed eighteen glasses of tea without declaring
himself " My mother interposed to inquire about Chaie Rive
and the children. Not at all discomposed at having to abandon
the anecdote, Nochum, still smiling, cried: "Now, that's a
good question. At this very moment I don't know how they
are. How should I? I'm here, not in Brooklyn, heh! A man
hasn't got eyes in the back of his head, has he?" He chuckled
as if he had scored a point in a jolly game. Then after a sip of
tea: "But when I left home an hour ago, Chaie Rivke wasn't
too well. No. She wasn't well at all. In fact," and he beamed,
"she was quite sick. I don't mind saying it. Why should I?

Hannah 167

She was very sick." Nochurn's face was radiant, but his eyes
became shifty and looked rather frightened. It was the signal
for Hannah to put on her things and leave with him.

Hannah would sometimes visit the Flayshigs out of sheer
friendliness and bring them back with her for a hot supper.
The twins, aged five, were always neatly, even stylishly
dressed, their dark hair done up in long, tubular curls looking
like inflated sausage skins. Chaie Rive was proud of these
curls, whose perfection must have cost her many hours of
labor with her forefinger, for she owned no curling-irons or
curling-pins. To prevent any disturbance of the shape and
symmetry of their curls, the twins were forbidden to partici-
pate in any game that could not be played standing still or
sitting quietly on chairs. Like her husband, Chaie Rive never
in public so much as hinted at the poverty that embittered her
existence. But when she spent the night at the Flayshigs 7 ,
Hannah would overhear Chaie Rive reproaching her husband
for his shiftlessness and indifference to the bare needs of his
family outbursts that Hannah said were like an angry sea
thundering against an indifferent and impregnable coast.
When visiting us, Chaie Rive always spoke warmly of
Nochum. She would tell us in confidence that he was at that
very moment snarled up in negotiations for a lucrative print-
ing job, holding out, if the truth must be told, for more money.
There could be little doubt that his demands would eventually
be met. Nochum was not a man who would suffer himself to
be taken advantage of.

These confidences Chaie Rive peppered with aphorisms.
Her aphorisms sounded like the concentrated distillations of
experience which are current in all lands, but on examination
they seemed either quite unrelated to experience or else too
obvious to be worth mentioning. "When one sits in a street-
car," she would say, "one does not know what is happening on
its roof!" There certainly was no gainsaying that, and Chaie
Rive would assume a look of triumph. Chaie Rive's maxims

l68 A LOST PARADISE

were impressive because they were all so remarkably true!
"A man in prison is not/w," "You can't expect the sun to
shine when it rains!" "Schools are for learning!" "During a
storm it is safer to be indoors!" I often wondered why Chaie
Rive did not apply her store of wisdom to the solution of her
daily worries. Perhaps she tried, but neither her philosophy of
life nor Nochum's jaunty indifference to reality ever had the
slightest effect on their disastrous fortunes. Nor could their
friends and relations achieve more than temporary ameliora-
tion of their economic troubles. I see, throughout my child-
hood and boyhood, the figures of Nochum and Chaie Rive
frozen in their respective attitudes, like the pair sculptured on
the Grecian Urn in Keats' s ode he forever amusedly (yet not
without a hint of terror in his eyes) pursuing an intangible and
ever-receding job, and she forever affirming propositions of a
self-evident nature, the while she curls her children's locks
with a determined forefinger.

There were others besides the Flayshigs whom Hannah
befriended at the cost of her leisure. The one I remember best
was Sarah Schwartz, a widow who sat next to Hannah in the
cigarette factory. Mrs. Schwartz was in poor health most of
the time and was often obliged to knock off work early in the
afternoon and go home. On those occasions Hannah worked
overtime and gave the widow her extra earnings. Mrs.
Schwartz had a daughter of my age, and the two lived in a
small hall bedroom on Henry Street. The little girl was
blonde and plump, with a round face like her mother's. Her
name was Lily, to my great joy, and when Hannah went to
visit the ailing Mrs. Schwartz, I begged to go along and play
with Lily. While Hannah ministered to the patient, Lily and I
played jacks on the floor. During one of our visits Mrs.
Schwartz, sitting up in bed and feeling better, called my
sister's attention to the happy young couple on the floor and
said out loud what a fine thing it would be if they married
each other when they grew up. Though I expected to marry

Hannah 1 69

someday, I had never given the subject much thought. But
the widow's suggestion, while it made me blush, placed Lily
in a new light. Since I had to marry someone, why shouldn't
it be Lily, who was cheerful and pretty and looked like her
mother, who was herself handsome in a mature way, especially
when she wore her pince-nez with its attached silver chain
looped over her ear? One of my wedding gifts to Lily would
be pince-nez, and I would also get a pair for myself. I could
picture us walking arm in arm on East Broadway of a Sunday
wearing our pince-nez, which we would often take off and
wipe with our pocket handkerchiefs, at the same time re-
vealing to passers-by the raw dents on either side of our
noses made by the tight-fitting convex metal clasps.

Presently Hannah sent us to play in the street while she
tidied up the room. And in the street Lily told me that she
loved me and asked me to swear that I would marry her. This
I did, but with some misgiving, for I knew that an oath was a
solemn thing registered in heaven, and could not be broken
without the gravest consequences to the swearer. I was also
somewhat taken aback by Lily's boldness in declaring her
love, for I had been led to believe by the poems and stories
we had read in school, as well as by the synopsis of some of the
books my sisters read, that it was the man's role to be the
pursuer. However, we were declared sweethearts for some
weeks, until the advent of summer, when Lily went to spend
her vacation with a relation in Stamford, Connecticut, who
kept a candy store on the Main Street and lived in an apart-
ment above it. When we parted, I promised Lily halfheartedly
to visit her in the country. But I knew that such a trip was
beyond my means. And when, on her return from Stamford
early in September, we met again, both of us were unaccount-
ably seized with shyness. Our interview grew strangely
impersonal and awkward, as if we were strangers meeting for
the first time. From then on we met rarely. I was surprised by
the instability of my affections, and, looking around to find

IJO A LOST PARADISE

some explanation for it, decided that true love, abiding and
unchanging, coold be felt only for one's mother and sisters.

It seemed to me that so beautiful, kind, and unselfish a girl
as Hannah would attract to herself most of the eligible men of
the East Side. Yet, notwithstanding her great desirability, the
number of her suitors was negligible. I cannot have looked
forward complacently to the time when Hannah would marry
and leave me. At the same time, I wanted her to be besieged
by suitors, none of whom she would consider seriously be-
cause of her great attachment to me. At the moment, I had
little cause for worry. She showed no unusual interest in
either of the two men who were her steady callers. Though I
teased her about Mr. Chaikin, I felt no serious danger in that
quarter. Mr. Chaikin made no attempt to conceal his inten-
tions. He was always at the house, and often stayed so late
that my mother was obliged to apprise him of the hour by
roundabout hints. As every room became a bedchamber at
night, none of us could go to bed while a stranger was in the
house.

I did not fear Mr. Chaikin, because he lacked the romantic
flavor that I believed a man must possess to interest a woman.
Yet he had every other attribute of a desirable suitor. He
was handsome in a florid way, tall, slightly plump, and soft of
body, his hair curly and parted on the side. He resembled, in
fact, Boris Thomashefsky, but he missed, somehow, that
celebrated singing actor's charm. In keeping with this resem-
blance to that idol, Mr. Chaikin was a devotee of music and
drama, with a flair of his own for acting and singing. With his
numerous anecdotes of life on the stage and in the opera house,
he brought the world of art right into our house. In his
pleasant baritone he sang entire operas for us. In this he was
often joined by the true, sweet soprano of Hannah, to whom
he had taught the feminine portions of his repertoire.

To cap these musical delights, Mr. Chaikin brought, one
unforgettable day, a most startling contrivance, which, on

Hannah 1 7 1

being wound up, reproduced the actual voices of artists
singing celebrated arias and even duets and trios. These
wonderful sounds emerged from an enormous horn attached
to the machine. Hollow, cylindrical wax molds, carefully
protected by cotton casings when not in use, imprisoned the
voices and the music. How Mr. Chaikin could afford so
elaborate and obviously expensive a machine remained a
mystery to us all, for he could not with any semblance of
truth be called a rich man. Mr. Chaikin spoke of himself as an
artist, and more definitely as a "Fresco-painter." My father
professed to find little difference between the art of Mr.
Chaikin and the unglamorous labors of Ida's husband. "A
painter," he would say with cold finality, "is a painter." But
while Mr. Chaikin had often impressed on us the difference
between a "Fresco"-painter like himself and a house-painter
like my brother-in-law, he was reticent about which of them
was paid better. We suspected that art was not as lucrative as
it deserved to be; for Mr. Chaikin inhabited a tiny, dimly
lighted top-floor bedroom in a decaying tenement on Allen
Street, the window of which was level with the tracks of the
elevated railroad. Mr. Chaikin claimed he had chosen the
room for its north light, the one indispensable condition for
"Fresco"-painting. But if the light was north, there was,
because of the presence of the elevated tracks and the station
shed, very little of it.

For my part I enjoyed visiting Mr. Chaikin and sitting by
his window while he painted in water-color small pictures of
fat cupids to serve as models for his "Fresco" paintings on the
walls and ceilings of houses he hoped to be engaged to deco-
rate. It seemed to me I could spend a lifetime at his window
enjoying the long crescendo of sound of approaching trains
and the brief but vivid glimpses of the passengers inside the
cars and on their crowded platforms. When he finished a
water-color, Mr. Chaikin would show it to me, ask what I
thought of it, and beg me to bear in mind that what I saw was

IJ2 A LOST PARADISE

only a small counterfeit, deficient in scope and brilliance, of
the real thing as it would look in a "Fresco painting." There
was a house uptown he knew about which was scheduled for
renovation, and this very water color would be submitted to
the proprietor as a sample of Mr. Chaikin's skill in art
decoration. It occurred to me that Mr. Chaikin might have
borrowed the money for the purchase of the phonograph on
the strength of such prospects. At that he was making a good
living out of it one sufficient to marry on. The fact that he
appeared to enjoy a good deal of leisure meant, Mr. Chaikin
assured me, nothing. One or two jobs of "Fresco-painting"
brought him enough to live on for a year. There were plenty of
prospects "uptown," that vague, affluent region far to the
north of us, half an hour by horse-car. There rich people with
a craving for beauty were waiting to be convinced that their
satin-covered walls and plain ceilings were outmoded and
inartistic, and that "Fresco-painting" was the desirable
decoration of the future. Because he had no access to these
would-be clients, he had put himself in the hands of a friend
who, as the proprietor of a paint store in a neighborhood
adjacent to "uptown," was in a position to recommend him to
householders wishing to redecorate their houses.

From a worldly point of view Mr. Beylinson, Hannah's
other constant caller, would be a better match. For one thing,
Mr. Beylinson was the manager of an ice-cream plant on
Madison Street. For another, he was a man about whom
everything was known. He had been one of the earliest of my
father's pupils in Vitebsk, and he would good-humoredly
recall several beatings he had taken on the occasion of formal
visits made by his parents to the cheder. He had come to
America long before us, and had from the smallest beginnings
risen to his present eminence in the commercial world. He
was tall and slim, and his cropped hair stood straight up, with
no part. He had an earnest, intelligent, rather serious face, and
when he laughed, his teeth were white, a rarity among the

Hannah 173

men we knew. Strangely enough, he had a sentimental attach-
ment for his old rabbi. Indeed, we suspected that Mr. Beylin-
son supplied my father with the mysterious funds that made
possible such extravagances as Lea's wedding dress. But his
kindness was not confined to my father alone. He was always
willing to alleviate misfortune. In that he resembled Hannah,
and his appreciation of her humane propensities may have
drawn him to her. He was perhaps the only friend acceptable
to both sides of the family.

He would sometimes take Hannah to a concert and ball at
Pythagoras Hall, and once when I begged hard he took me
along. That evening Hannah looked radiant in a pink silk
shirtwaist and long black satin skirt, and Mr. Beylinson
looked quite handsome in a dark suit and a tall, upstanding
starched collar with a large bow tie. I could not figure out
how Hannah obtained her beautiful outfit. There never seemed
to be an extra quarter around the house. Yet Hannah and
Molly always managed to look smart when they went out.
There was a needlewoman in the neighborhood who made
clothes for the girls for what my mother told my father was
practically "nothing." Yet the material was of the fashionable
kind and must have cost something. But if the pink silk shirt-
waist was an extravagance, Hannah took measures to preserve
its freshness. She had tied a large white handkerchief around
her waist, so arranged that it would protect the back of her
shirtwaist from the perspiring right palms of her dance part-
ners. Mr. Beylinson was always careful to place his right hand
squarely on the handkerchief. Not so one or two other men
who asked my sister for a dance. To these Hannah said po-
litely: "Lower, please," and, the hand being adjusted, the
two would solemnly waltz away. Mr. Beylinson' s manner to
my sister was indulgent and at the same time condescending,
or perhaps I should say, impersonal. He certainly did not
behave like a suitor, nor did Hannah show any preference for
him over Mr. Chaikin.

174 A LOST PARADISE

Molly was too young to think of marriage, but old enough
to have beaux. So far there was no question of her being in
love, and I could look forward to many years of intimate com-
panionship with her. She was not nearly so kind and good-
natured as Hannah, and her personality had no spiritual over-
tones like Hannah's. On the coarser plane of life in a crowded
ghetto Molly and I enjoyed a community of sympathy and
interest such as I could never share with Hannah. Her vitality
was unusual. Like me, she never grew tired. She was impul-
sive, savagely intolerant of injustice, embarrassingly out-
spoken, and, like me, prone to laughter. We were both just
as prone to tears. In fact, almost everything we saw or heard
made us laugh or cry. The people who came to our house
either engaged our affections or excited our scorn. We knew
no moderate emotions. My mother would scold us for "look-
ing at each other," as, indeed, we did look at each other in the
presence of those who fell short of our inflexible standards of
looks and behavior. And very often we would rush out of the
house to avoid outbursts of derisive laughter we felt we could
not check.

On hot summer nights Molly and I would seek relief from
the heat in Jackson Street Park. The park, innocent of grass
and trees, was a large asphalted area close to the East River,
with many lanes of benches for the convenience of visitors
and a stone pavilion like a Greek temple, where a small
brass band played occasionally and milk was dispensed at a
penny a glass. The park was always crowded. The men were
in their undershirts. The women, more fully dressed, carried
newspapers for fans. Hordes of barefoot children played
games, weaving in and out of the always thick mass of
promenaders. It was on these walks in Jackson Street Park
that Molly revealed her more serious side. She talked about
the perpetual schism in our family, about our depressing pov-
erty and my mother's indulgent attitude toward my father's
tyrannical behavior. Once she hinted that she and Hannah

Hannah 175

were at the breaking-point, especially Hannah, the chief target
of my father's displeasure. Except for their reluctance to leave
their mother and me, they were prepared to leave the house
and set up for themselves.

It was in Jackson Street Park that Molly imparted a dis-
turbing piece of news. Hannah, she told me, was in love! I
braced myself to hear the name of the stranger whose ap-
pearance I was uneasily expecting. But no stranger had
appeared. Hannah was in love with Mr. Beylinson! I could
hardly believe it. Hannah had given no intimation. Molly
laughed and said that I was only a child. There had been many
intimations. I was probably the only member of the family
who hadn't guessed. At any rate, Molly had asked her sister
point-blank whether she loved Mr. Beylinson, and Hannah,
caught unaware, had been unable to deny it.

Molly had no doubt that Mr. Beylinson was fond of Hannah
and that a little encouragement from her would bring him to
the point of a direct proposal. What she feared was my
father's influence over him. My father was certain to oppose
the marriage for two reasons. First, he would regard such a
brilliant match as a victory for the "enemy," and, second,
' Mr. Beylinson married to Hannah might easily lose his senti-
mental attachment for his old rabbi and withdraw the benefits
that had gone with it. Molly professed to have noticed omi-
nous signs of opposition on my father's part, and who could
tell what he was saying to his former pupil in private?

Burdened with this intelligence, I began to watch my father
for those evidences of opposition Molly had remarked. My
father was seldom direct in undermining what he wished to
oppose. He was clever at devising secondary annoyances to
disguise his real objective. If, for example, his aim was to
punish my mother, he would talk disarmingly about Mrs.
Reich's devotion to her husband, Zalman, or he would set
himself against my going to a matinee that cost nothing, and
would force me to stay home and read the Bible with him. I

Ij6 A LOST PARADISE

now observed that when Mr. Beylinson was present, my
father missed no occasion to animadvert, in half-serious
fashion, on my mother's propensity for extravagance and on
Molly's idleness on Sundays and holidays. The latter accusa-
tion would bring Hannah to her sister's defense. And this in
turn would offer him the opportunity of hinting that Hannah
herself was not beyond reproach, that the apple does not fall
far from the tree, and that angelic dispositions often have a
secret layer of all too human imperfections. And when, of an
evening, the rest of the family would discreetly retire to the
front room, leaving Mr. Beylinson and Hannah by themselves
in the kitchen, my father would make no move to leave, but
would pretend to be absorbed in one of his religious books. In
short, it became clear to me that my father had set himself
against the romance and was doing everything he could to
prevent its consummation.

This unavowed campaign against my sister's happiness
came to a dramatic head one Saturday. It was Hannah's chore
to set the table for the midday dinner and to place the two
chalehs (twist breads) in front of my father's place. My
father had just come from schul (synagogue) and had washed
his hands and sat down at the table, ready to remove the
napkin from the chalehs and bless them. But the chalehs were
not in their accustomed place! What all-absorbing preoccupa-
tion had caused Hannah to forget the chalehs that fateful
Saturday I never learned. My father rose from his place, his
face white with rage. As he had not yet broken his fast, he
was forbidden by rabbinical injunction to vent his anger in
speech. Silently, his eyes ablaze, he seized Hannah, dragged
her to the door, opened it with one hand, shoved her onto the
landing, and sent her flying pell-mell down the flight of stairs
to the ground, where she lay dazed, in a heap. My mother,
hearing the clatter, came running from the kitchen, and Molly
and I rushed down the stairs and helped Hannah to her feet.
In a furtive council the four of us held at the bottom of the

Hannah 177

stairs, it was decided that Hannah could not return to the
house, but should go forthwith to Chaie Rive's in Brooklyn. I
was to accompany her there. Molly went upstairs and fetched
Hannah's hat, veil, jacket, and pocketbook.

On our way to Grand Street a resolution was forming in my
head, and when we were seated in the streetcar I confided it to
Hannah. I told her I had made up my mind to kill my father. I
had been harboring thoughts of revenge for a long time, but
they had been amorphous until that morning. Now 1 saw
clearly, for the first time, what had to be done. A man who
was so inhuman to a person as blameless as Hannah must not
be permitted to live. Nor could I foresee any consequences to
me as a result of his assassination. I would explain the nature
of the man to the judge and jury, who would then have no
alternative but to set me free. They might even extol the
parricide as an act of divine justice and hold it up as a warning
to all unfeeling parents. Hannah's reaction to my resolve was
disappointing. She heard me out gravely; but when I finished
she smiled and drew me closer to her and said I was foolish to
have such ideas, that after all he njoas my father, and that I
must at least wait until I grew up before I could pass judgment
on him. I replied with some warmth that I saw no virtue in the
'accident of relationship, else I should love my father's chil-
dren as much as I loved my mother's, which she well knew I
couldn't. Her disapproval had no effect on my resolve, and
soon I found an unexpected ally in Molly, who, when I out-
lined my plan, showed no surprise and intimated that she had
independently arrived at the same solution to our troubles.

On the following morning my mother appeared unexpect-
edly at Chaie Rive's. She had come to persuade Hannah to
return home. She told us that my father had calmed down as
suddenly as he had flared up the day before. She declared that
his assault on Hannah was inexcusable, yet she thought it
could perhaps be explained by the fact that he hadn't had a
morsel to eat since supper the night before, and on top of that

178 A LOST PARADISE

the absence of the chaleh! . . . Unlike me, Hannah could
never harbor a grievance for long. Perhaps she felt that she had
no right to abandon the three of us to my father's uncertain
temper. The upshot of my mother's visit was that we all
returned home later in the day. Hannah assumed her old duties
as if nothing had happened. On Saturday the chalehs were in
their place on the table, facing my father's chair. My father,
too, appeared to have quite forgotten the dreadful episode of
the previous Sabbath. After he had blessed the bread and
eaten a morsel, he chatted amiably about his friends at the
synagogue and, as usual, singled out Zalman Reich as the most
enviable member of the congregation.

But from then on, Mr. Beylinson's visits to the house grew
less frequent. Molly was certain that through subtle innuendo
and calculated misrepresentation my father had finally con-
vinced Mr. Beylinson that Hannah was not the wife for him.
Or Mr. Beylinson may have decided against marrying into a
family so torn with internecine strife as ours. Hannah confided
in no one, not even in Molly. But Molly could tell by certain
signs she had learned to interpret that her sister was passing
through a crisis. On the other hand, the tension at home less-
ened with Mr. Beylinson's increasing reluctance to visit us.
My father assumed an air of placid aloofness, and from this
radical change of behavior Molly surmised that Mr. Beylinson
was now definitely lost to Hannah. As far as I could ascertain,
Hannah showed no trace of any disappointment or of what
Molly called a broken heart. Her solicitude for me even in-
creased, and her kindness to those who enlisted her help never
faltered.

Mr. Beylinson having finally betaken himself from the
scene, I was not surprised to see Mr. Chaikin, who had for a
short while succumbed to pessimism, double his visits and
his efforts to interest Hannah and to charm the rest of the
household. Molly kept me abreast of the progress he was
making. Riding on a new wave of prosperity occasioned by

Hannah 1 79

the successful efforts of his friend the paint-store owner, who
had obtained for him a big job of 'Tresco-painting'' in a house
on the fashionable upper West Side, Mr. Chaikin suddenly
made a formal application for my sister's hand. My mother,
eager to see Hannah married before people could learn about
Mr. Beylinson's defection, had no objections to Mr. Chaikin
and referred him to Hannah, who, to my utter astonishment,
accepted him. I could not understand how, loving Mr.
Beylinson, she could marry Mr. Chaikin! But Molly said she
understood very well, and she was sure that Hannah would
forget Mr. Beylinson, once she was married. Furthermore,
Molly would have approved of any marriage if only for the
reason that it would liberate Hannah from the tyranny of her
stepfather and the dissensions of the house. Upon consideration
I was forced to agree with her. For one thing, her marriage
would remove at a stroke the necessity for my father's
assassination. In the placid and genial mood he had assumed, I
could not slay him in cold blood. And I remembered Hamlet's
Inability to kill his stepfather for a reason not unlike mine.
For another, Hannah's marriage assured the continuation of
the flow of operatic art, if not in our house, then in my sister's
future abode. And, finally, there was implicit in this marriage
the assurance that I would not be supplanted in my sister's
affections, something I could not have taken for granted had
she married Mr. Beylinson.

The wedding took place a fortnight later. It was held in
our front room. Hannah wore her monkey-jacket suit and a
white shirtwaist. The only other guests besides the members
of our family were Chaie Rive, her husband, and the twins,
and Mr. Chaikin's elder brother Morris, whom we saw for the
first time. Morris Chaikin lived in St. Louis, Missouri (he
never mentioned the city without adding the state) , where he
was engaged in the mattress business. His presence in New
York combined, he said, business and pleasure. Right after the
refreshments, the couple departed for a week's honeymoon in

l8o A LOST PARADISE

a boarding-house in the Catskills owned by a relation of Mr.
Chaikin's friend and agent, the paint-store proprietor. I
could not say that I was jealous of Mr. Chaikin, yet I felt de-
pressed and could not keep back my tears when I saw Molly
and my mother crying. Nochum Flayshig began a humorous
anecdote, but, finding that no one was listening, abandoned it
in the middle and sat smiling to himself as if in pity for our
lack of humor. Chaie Rive applied herself to straightening out
the ringlets of the twins and reminded us that this was an
occasion for merrymaking, not for sorrow, an opinion that
she hastened to clinch with an aphorism to the effect that at
birth one cannot possibly guess what the future will bring.
This appeared irrefutable, and a silence descended on the
room. When I could no longer bear the pervasive sadness, I
ran out into the street to seek relief and forgetfulness in a
game of "one-o'-cat."

CHAPTER TEN

usiness Affairs

W

f fmi

r HILE each marriage in our family left us with a
roomier apartment and an extra blanket, it also resulted in a
tighter economy. Hannah had been the chief support of the
household (Molly stubbornly reserved a large percentage of
her earnings for her own use), and her departure brought a
financial crisis to the family. All my mother could now count
on were Molly's modest contribution and my father's meager
and erratic earnings. Sarah was not yet fourteen, and there-
fore could not be legally sent out to work.

To meet our new emergency, the first thing to do was to
find a cheaper apartment. Many such were available, but they
were "in the back," facing a great network of clotheslines and
immodestly close to the windows of the rear apartments of
the tenements opposite ours. My mother found a first-floor
apartment u in the back" in a house on Rutgers Place which
faced the livery stable I knew so well. I missed the view I had
loved for some two years. I could no longer see from my
window the meeting of four busy streets and the long stretch

182 A LOST PARADISE

of East Broadway to its vanishing-point where it merged
with Grand Street. Gone from view was R. Hoe, Inc., with its
sky-piercing clock tower. Of course East Broadway was only
a few blocks away from Rutgers Place, and for a few weeks
after our removal I visited it daily and looked up longingly at
our old front windows in number 157. But my appetite for
this sentimental pilgrimage dwindled as I entered more and
more into the life of Rutgers Place. I soon joined the Rutgers
Streeters and espoused its enmities and alliances happily the
Rutgers Streeters and my old gang, the East Broadwayers,
were on friendly terms, so that I was not obliged to make war
on my former comrades.

Our next step toward improving our financial situation was
a bold invasion of the realm of trade. My mother had noticed
the increasing tendency of housewives to spare themselves the
labor of cooking by patronizing the delicatessen store. Origi-
nally a German institution, the delicatessen store reached the
East Side through the agency of the reassuring word "kosher."
Kosher delicatessen stores soon appeared on every street, and
kosher sausage factories sprang up to supply them and to
encourage the creation of new stores by offering to provide
store fixtures on a long-term installment arrangement and to
extend credit on an equally generous scale. Children took to
delicatessen for its spiciness, preferring it to the bland, boiled
meats their mothers served at home. Elderly people still
frowned on delicatessen and clung to their accustomed boiled
and sweet-and-sour meats, but they were powerless to attack
the pickled viands on religious grounds. Even my father, while
himself eschewing delicatessen, had no doubts about the
orthodoxy of the rabbinical supervision under which it was
manufactured.

It occurred to my mother one day that the proprietorship of
a delicatessen store was our best hope for financial security.
Two obstacles immediately presented themselves: my father's
opposition (an automatic first reaction to any suggestion put

Business Affairs 1 8 3

out by my mother) and our complete lack of money. My
father stated categorically that there was no future in delica-
tessen and that what my mother saw as a trend was only a
temporary deviation from normal Jewish eating habits. He
also pointed out that the best restaurants (the one at 1 59 East
Broadway was a good example) offered a "regular dinner''
of no less than six courses for fifteen cents, which, while not
cheap, was certainly for bulk and quality a better buy than
fifteen cents' worth of delicatessen. My mother replied that
only a housewife could have an authoritative opinion on the
future of delicatessen. She also reminded him that his prognos-
tications had in the past always proved wrong. He was, she
said, by nature too conservative and pessimistic to understand
the power of imagination when backed by persistence. Had
she taken his advice, they never would have found Mr. Harris
in London. And if they hadn't found him they would not now
be in New York.

My father's objections were more easily disposed of than
the chief obstacle, our lack of money. After exhaustive in-
quiries in delicatessen circles, my mother reported that the
Mandlebaum Sausage Factory on Houston Street was pre-
pared to contribute a part of the fixtures to the proposed store
and to extend credit for merchandise for a period of three
months. There were delicatessen stores for sale in the neigh-
borhood, but the prices asked were far above anything my
mother could contrive to borrow. It was cheaper to rent a
store and start one's own business. Taking into account the
fixtures proffered by Mandlebaum and the offer of a loan of a
soda-water fountain by a manufacturer of carbonated water,
my mother arrived at the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars
as sufficient to launch the venture.

It was a staggering sum to raise, and my father wished to
be informed how she proposed to raise it. "Mr. Beylinson,"
my mother said succinctly. We had not seen Mr. Beylinson
at our house since some time before Hannah's marriage. But

184 A LOST PARADISE

we suspected that my father saw him frequently at his ice-
cream factory. After pooh-poohing the suggestion, my father
wanted to know just what guarantee he could offer Mr. Bey-
linson that the loan, if granted, would be repaid. "Give him,"
my mother promptly replied, "a receipt." That seemed to
settle the matter. I knew that a receipt was a decisive docu-
ment. Our landlord gave us one each month. My father, how-
ever, received the suggestion without enthusiasm, though he
agreed to speak to his pupil about a loan. My mother was so
sure of my father's influence over Mr. Beylinson that she went
at once to Mandlebaum's factory and made final arrangements
with the manager for the extension of credit and the installa-
tion of store fixtures. She rented a vacant store in the building
we lived in. And days before Mr. Beylinson handed my father
the one hundred and fifty dollars in (for some reason) one-
dollar bills (and impressive they looked as my mother counted
them out carefully with the aid of a continually wet thumb) ,
the store had been swept and a vanload of fixtures and tables
and chairs had cluttered up its length, waiting to be put in
place.

Mannie Kalb came over on Sunday morning and lettered the
plate-glass window in masterly fashion. The letters were
huge, in black with strong white borders around them. Shaped
like an arc, the first line read:

And underneath, in straight lines:

MANDLEBAUM'S MEAT SUPPLIES
SODA WATER, ALL KINDS SYRUPS

CIGARETTES

MOSHE BAER CHOT2SINOFF, PROP.
REGULAR DINNER 15 CENTS

Business Affairs 1 8 5

The final item was a concession to my father, who thought it
might attract people accustomed to eating in restaurants.
Secretly my mother had no faith in its drawing power, for she
made no preparations for serving "regular" dinners. But she
assured my father that she was capable of handling any cus-
tomer who might require a "regular" meal. Nor was she
boasting. On several occasions I saw her successfully steer a
"regular dinner" customer away from his expectation of ap-
petizer, soup, fish, boiled meat, dessert, and tea and cake to a
plate of corned beef or pastrami and a schooner of raspberry
soda to top it off!

The day finally arrived for the "Grand Opening." Grand
openings on the East Side were conducted on a standardized
pattern, and ours had the usual features. For all its familiarity
it was, nevertheless, an exciting event. A week before, Mannie
had painted on a large piece of cardboard: "GRAND OPENING
JULY 5." The sign, resting on an improvised cardboard easel,
was placed ostentatiously in the store window. On the morn-
ing of the great day a large wicker basket with artificial
flowers arrived, the gift of Mr. Beylinson. We knew Mr.
Beylinson had sent it, though the painted inscription on the
silk ribbon tied in a bow on the handle said only: "Best
Wishes From A Friend." Who else but Mr. Beylinson could
afford such an expensive gift? My mother placed the basket in
the center of the window and grouped around it many chunks
of uncooked corned beef and pastrami. Viewed from the street
it made an impressive picture, and along with the two dozen
long, hard salamis hung by cords from the window ceiling,
this grouping of flowers and food attracted the attention of
passers-by from morning till night. In fact the window-shop-
pers were so numerous that the customers (disappointingly
few) had difficulty in making their way through the crowds
outside.

Inside, the store looked fetching indeed! The salami motif,
so effective in the window, was also carried out in the counter

186 A LOST PARADISE

display. Separated from customers by a low glass partition,
the counter bristled with bisected salamis, hard and soft, and
bolognas thick and thin. My mother, flanked by an ex-
perienced young man the Mandlebaum firm had obligingly
delegated to assist at the grand opening, stood behind the
counter, knife in hand, filling the orders rapidly, like a veteran
delicatessen-store owner. Behind her on a ledge lay tall stacks
of slices of rye bread, and next to them stood an enormous jar
of soft, soup-like, bright golden mustard. My mother dis-
pensed sandwiches, taking care to cut the corned beef,
pastrami, or salami paper-thin, as she had been taught to do
by the Mandlebaum young man, who himself concentrated on
"plate" orders for the occupants of tables. Sometimes as she
"closed" a sandwich with a top slice of bread a customer
would protest against the meager ratio of meat to bread and
my mother would reopen the sandwich and add a slice or two,
and with a smile say that she was grateful for all suggestions.
Also at the suggestion of the young man from Mandlebaum's,
my mother had invited a dozen friends and relatives to sit as
guests at the three tables that lined the wall of the store. She
had cautioned them to behave in all respects like customers, to
order what they wanted (within reason, of course), and to
send substitutes when they themselves had business else-
where, for the tables had to look at all times quite filled. My
father for reasons of pride (it was easy to justify his wife's
venture into delicatessen, but a respected teacher of Hebrew
who was preparing for the career of rabbi could hardly do
more with propriety than lend his name to it) kept himself
aloof, walking up and down the opposite side of the street to
note, unobserved, the success or failure of the grand opening.
When lunch time arrived at noon, business took a spurt.
People who worked on our street came in for a sandwich, a
pickle, and a glass of soda water, or bought a few cents' worth
of meat and bread to take out. When a few customers, de-
siring a more elaborate meal, went toward the tables, some

Business Affairs 1 8 7

of the seated relatives exhibited embarrassment and looked to
my mother for guidance, some even rising as if to leave. These
my mother subdued with significant glances, and they sank
back in their chairs. My mother was quite willing to take a
loss on this day for the sake of a future gain, for the rumor
would soon get around that the new delicatessen store was
such a success that not a table was ever to be had.

The store hours were from seven a.m. to midnight. My
father came in at closing-time by the back door and watched
my mother count up the day's receipts. The gross was about
fifteen dollars, and the net, after much figuring, came to six.
My mother had reason to feel elated. A grand opening offered
no financial yardstick; but she felt that if the business eased
off to ten dollars gross per day, which meant a profit of four
dollars, or twenty-four dollars a week, the sum would more
than fill the financial loss occasioned by Hannah's marriage.
Faced with the concrete proof of an actual day's profit, my
father admitted that he might have been overpessimistic
about the venture. At the same time he complained that he had
had nothing to eat all day but a roll and a saucer of cream. My
mother assured him that she would find time to prepare a hot
meal for themselves every day. And if all went as well as she
hoped, she might even hire someone to tend store mornings till
noon. This would enable her to clean our apartment, cook
and serve dinner, and wash up afterwards.

With a wealth of delicatessen available at all hours, I failed
to understand my father's preference for home cooking. I
abandoned myself without restraint to the food in our store.
For lunch I alternated between "plates" of corned beef,
pastrami, and large bologna. The large bologna, though a
coarser meat, was especially good between draughts of
sarsaparilla out of a schooner. When school let out at three
o'clock, I made straight for our store and made myself a sand-
wich extravagantly bursting with many slices of quite un-
penetrable salami buried under a thick coating of the yellowish

l88 A LOST PARADISE

mustard. Salami called for a schooner of raspberry soda. For
supper I selected slices of several meats, which I heaped high
on a plate and ate with a large pickle and several acid pickled
tomatoes. I was permitted to wait on customers, and I fre-
quently released my mother to her household chores upstairs.
I learned to slice salami, tongue, and bologna paper-thin (when
I served myself, the slices came out thicker), and I managed
to eat a morsel at every sale I made.

In the rear of the store was a large, sunless room, with a
long slit of a window, heavily barred. This was my mother's
room of all work, where she cooked the corned beefs, tongues,
and pastramis in a tin clothes-boiler over a three-burner gas
stove. When she lifted the lid of the boiler, the fatty, bubbling
water spilled over on the floor, and the delicious, aggressive
aroma of superheated pickled beef would mingle with and
soon overpower the prevailing insistent, native, musty, dank
smell of perspiring, decaying paint and plaster. As clouds of
steam burst from the boiler and rushed to the ceiling, my
mother plunged a great iron fork into the submerged chunks of
beef and, finding the flesh unresisting, she raised them one by
one out of the caldron and carried them, steaming and drip-
ping, quickly into the store. There she deposited them on the
counter and with a large sharp knife proceeded to pare away
as little of the surrounding fat as she could get away with,
for most customers eschewed fat and resolutely demanded its
excision, notwithstanding my mother's Insistence that so ex-
travagant paring would take all her profit out of the transac-
tion. The sight and smell of the meat by now the knife had
exposed to view the rosy, corrugated, succulent fibers behind
the protective gray coating of fat generally proved too much
for me. I might have only just finished my lunch or dinner or
an afternoon snack, but I would plead for, and always get, a
slice, which I dispatched clean, without the leavening inter-
vention of a slice of bread. Such was my pleasant, exclusive
diet for the nine months' life of our delicatessen store. Fre-

Business Affairs 189

quent intestinal discomfort, which kept me in bed for short
periods, failed to curb my enthusiasm for delicatessen, pickles,
pickled tomatoes, mustard, and soda water, and I always re-
turned to the store with my appetite sharpened by deprivation.
The nine months were so packed with adventure that they
passed quicker than other periods of the same duration before
and after. Aside from the pleasures of eating and drinking, I
loved to tend store, and I learned to be expert in handling the
variety of knives on the counter and in guessing exactly how
many slices of meat would register a quarter, a half, or a
pound on the scales. The soda fountain was an unceasing
fascination, and I never without a feeling of surprise and
pleasure reversed the lever that released a sharp needle-like
spray to agitate and bring to a foam the schooner of soda. I sold
cigarettes too, mostly singly for a penny, and handing them
over the counter gave me a sense of being grown up. I would
keep my mother company until closing-time at midnight,
often against her wishes. I hung around, not for any help I
could be (customers were few between seven and twelve
p.m.), but for the satisfaction of being in the store, inhaling
the delicious confusion of smells, and watching in the large
mirror behind the counter the reflection of the tables and
chairs and the advertisements of Mandlebaum's products, and
even of things the store did not carry, like Passover wine,
matzoth, and Brown's Celery Tonic. I presume we did not
dispense Brown's Celery Tonic, which was a favorite drink
in the neighborhood, because it was bottled, and the margin
of profit from it would be less than that of the syrup and car-
bonated water we sold at the soda fountain. (I was to revel
in the celery taste and aroma of Brown's Tonic some years
later.) The mirror also reflected a placard on the wall urging
people to drink "Moxie," and showing a dapper young clerk
in white, with sleek black hair parted mathematically in the
middle, pointing a commanding forefinger and looking at one
directly, and rather threateningly. We served, alas, no Moxie,

A LOST PARADISE

which, as depicted on the card, looked deliciously dark and
racy.

My mother always resorted to boiling water in our unceas-
ing war on vermin. Neighbors argued the merits of popular
bedbug and cockroach powders, but my mother, who had in
her time tried everything, put her trust in a kettle of hot water.
In the summer she would devote an entire evening to bed-
bugs. Every coil of her own bedspring and the iron folding
bed would be penetrated by a spurt of boiling water and the
vermin would fall to the floor, zigzag crazily for a moment,
and suddenly stiffen into extinction. She would even pour
water on the buttons of her mattress and cover it with the oil-
cloth from the table at bedtime. Nor was she content with half
measures in dealing with lice. Most mothers of the neighbor-
hood would sit of a summer evening on the steps of their
stoops, patiently exploring the heads of their children and
deftly extracting the vermin and crushing them between the
nails of their thumbs. But my mother periodically subjected
my head and my little sister's to whole kettles of water
heated to a temperature we were barely able to endure. And
where everybody else examined the seams of their underwear
for lice nightly on going to bed, my mother adopted the
(more) preventive measure of doing the family wash (in
scalding water) as often as twice a week!

The delicatessen store was closed from sundown Friday to
sundown Saturday. One Saturday afternoon there was a
knock at the door of our apartment upstairs, and a tall man
wearing a dark suit and a derby hat came in. In a mild voice he
announced that the store had been robbed. The robbery, he
said, must have occurred during the night. The lock of the
back door had been broken, and the thieves had denuded the
place of every edible thing. We hastily went down to the
store with him and found that our informant had not exag-
gerated. Not a salami was left hanging in the windows, nor
had the thieves left so much as a slice of large or small bologna.

Business Affairs 1 9 1

Gone were the half-new jars of pickles and even the enormous
jar of mustard.

The strange man showed us the extent of our losses like a
cicerone leading a party through a point of historic interest.
He then said that his name was Mac and that he was a private
detective, and he offered to protect the premises for a fee of
two dollars a week. I translated the proposition to my parents.
Seeing my mother hesitate, Mac told me to tell her that he was
well acquainted with the thieves of the district and was in a
position to guarantee absolute protection. My mother, he said,
was at liberty to take or leave his offer; but if she did not en-
gage his services he was sure that robberies like the one that
had just taken place would become a commonplace. Mac spoke
suavely, in a low, engaging voice. My mother looked him over
while I translated his words; then she abruptly told me to say
that he was hired. On hearing this, Mac tipped his derby hat
politely and told us that from that moment on, our worries
were over.

The robbery, it was computed, set us back about fifty dol-
lars. If it had taken place the following Monday, when we ex-
pected the delivery of a very large order from Mandlebaum's,
the loss would have been nearly double that. There was noth-
ing for it but to get another loan from Mr. Beylinson. The
moment being critical, my father did not, for once, demur.
And on Monday morning before the new order arrived, he
called on his old pupil at the ice-cream factory and obtained
the fifty dollars. The store was duly replenished that very
day. My father even professed to see the hand of providence
in the extraordinary coincidence of the appearance of the
private detective on our street on the very morning of the
robbery. He could also read an assurance of power in Mac's
gentle, persuasive manner. And, indeed, Mac was as good as
his word, for we did not have another robbery in the two or
three months he protected the store. During that time he would
visit us nearly every day around supper time, sometimes bring-

192 A LOST PARADISE

ing along a friend or two. They would all sit down at a table
and Mac would play host generously, ordering large platefuls
of corned beef, his favorite among all the meats. We never
charged him anything, for he assured us at the outset that he
enjoyed the full hospitality of those of his clients who owned
eating establishments, and he gently offered to have his meals
elsewhere if we preferred, as, of course, we didn't.

I found Mac and his friends very entertaining. They talked
a good deal about politics, especially in relation to local mat-
ters. One afternoon Mac arrived in a moving- van and craved
permission to store some things for a few days in the back
room. Before I could translate his request to my mother, two
men began carrying oblong crates into the store, with Mac
gently but confidently directing the operation. I recognized
the objects as ballot boxes of the sort I had seen in voting
places, and on my expressing interest Mac laughingly told
me he was playing a joke on a judge, an old friend of his; that
the boxes were, indeed, full of ballots as a result of an election
that had just been concluded, that he was playfully holding up
the count, and that he would return the boxes in a few days
and disclose to his friend the prank he had played on him. In
conclusion Mac hoped I would keep his secret, which, nat-
urally, I did. Some days later the same van drew up and the
boxes were taken away. Mac reported that on hearing the
trick that had been played on him his friend the judge had
been vastly amused. But a week later Mac disappeared as
mysteriously as he had arrived. We never saw him again, and
all our inquiries around the neighborhood failed to throw any
light whatsoever on him or his whereabouts.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Freedom Method

T

JLHE

.HE delicatessen store failed to realize our hopes.
After the initial flurry of the opening day, it settled down to a
disappointing net profit of about six dollars a week, with slight
fluctuations on one side or the other. My father, too, was
earning less than usual, for he now gave a good deal of his
time to the rabbinical studies mandatory for future shochets
and mohels. I was by now a big boy often, and what with my
piano lessons, music books, clothing, and shoes I was and I
realized I was a drain on the family economy. Because I
spent most of my time on the streets in games and in the more
belligerent activities of my gang, I was very hard on clothes
and especially on shoes. Hardly a week went by without a
visit to the cobbler. Even the iron guards he nailed on toes and
heels wore to razor-thinness within a few days. I felt I had to
do something both in the way of retrenchment and in that of

194 A LOST PARADISE

earning some money. Retrenchment suddenly became possible
through the fortuitous appearance of a lady who moved into
the third-floor front of our tenement and pasted up a printed
card in the entrance hall reading: * 'Madam Zamoshkin,
Teacher of Piano and Voice."

The day she moved in I watched a beautiful upright piano
being carried up the three flights by four men. This operation,
which I aided in spirit from a position close behind the movers,
caused me agonies of concern for the safety of the instrument,
which, like some huge, timid creature resenting exposure,
seemed bent on self-destruction. Later that day I went out on
our landing and heard the piano being played upstairs in ac-
companiment to a loud and acid soprano voice. When the
song was finished, I ran up the two flights and knocked at the
Zamoshkins' door. Mrs. Zamoshkin herself opened it and
asked me what I wanted; and when I told her I was a pianist
and lived on the first floor, she invited me in. She was a big
woman, with a heavy bosom that rebelled against the confining
ribs of a corset showing through a fashionable-looking, trans-
parent, dirty silk dressing-gown she had on. There were no
buttons on the gown, nor any other visible mechanism to keep
it from flying open, which it repeatedly did, revealing a dirty
white petticoat edged at the bottom with coarse brown lace.
When the flaps of the gown separated, Mrs. Zamoshkin said:
"Pardonne verzeihe excuse, please," in a husky, languid
voice, at the same time covering herself modestly. She asked
me how long and with whom I had studied, and invited me to
play a piece. I chose The Alpine Shepherd's Evening Song,
which I played with the utmost expressiveness. Mrs. Zamosh-
kin had lit a cigarette (I had never before seen a woman
smoke) and sat near me. When I finished she said, again set-
ting to rights the unruly dressing-gown: "Zamitchalnya"
("Beautiful," in Russian), "sehr gut!" She got up and knocked
at the door of an adjoining room. "Cheri" she called in a soft,
haunting, elegant tone of voice which made me experience a

The Freedom Method 195

sensation I could not Identify as ever having felt before, one
that I found simultaneously disturbing and pleasant: "Darling
may I disturb you for a minute?" The door opened and a
young man came into the room. He looked pale and not very
well. He was tall, thin, and sandy-haired, and had a long, sharp
nose. He was heavily dressed, though it was summer. A large
muffler was wound twice around his throat. "Sonza" ("Sun,"
or "Pretty one"), she said, and she smiled deprecatingly as
her gown separated again and she made haste to arrange it
properly. "Did you hear this child? Zamitchalnya n*est~ce-
fas?" The young man echoed the Russian word in a weary
voice. "This is Grisha my husband," Mrs. Zamoshkin said
with pride, and I rose from the piano stool and offered my
hand. The young man, to my embarrassment, refused to take
it. Instead he turned slowly around and without a word went
into his room and closed the door behind him. "Cover your
throat, angel," she called after him.

Mrs. Zamoshkin explained that her husband was a poet and
didn't have much time to spare, being at that very moment en-
gaged in the creation of a cycle of gypsy poems, which she
was setting to music. She went to the piano and sang and
played one of them, and I recognized the very one I had heard
from my landing. The poem was in Russian, and Mrs.
Zamoshkin obligingly translated a line for me. It was a wild,
rhapsodical poem, the sense of which eluded me. But I ap-
preciated the effectiveness of its insistent refrain, which came
after every second line and addressed the gypsy directly.
"Tara-ra-ra-ta-ra-ra-ra" was the meter of the Russian lines,
and then the refrain: "Ho! Gypsy! Ha! Gypsy! Hey! Gypsy!
Hi! Gypsy!" Mrs. Zamoshkin' s voice was uncommonly stri-
dent, and at one point her husband put his head out of his
door and said: "I thought you were finished with that one!"
She threw him a warm smile and said: "Yes, I wanted
Dushinka" ("Darling" meaning me) "to hear it." The song
cycle would comprise six numbers, she confided to me, each

196 A LOST PARADISE

one dealing with a different phase of gypsy life. She was look-
ing around for a publisher. Whoever took the songs was bound
to make a fortune, for the passion of the verses would excite
the blood and imagination of the most sluggish purchaser. I
therefore recommended Mr. Katz of East Broadway, hoping
thus to show him my gratitude for his kindness to me in the
past year.

Mrs. Zamoshkin then went into my own situation. Her
opinion of my playing was most flattering, but she thought the
time had arrived for me to tackle a more ambitious repertoire
than the one I had studied. Her own piano method was a
revolutionary one, and under it her pupils had made brilliant
progress. She described this method in one word: "Freedom!"
she said, and the word rang out impressively violent. "My
method is liberty! A teacher should not be a jailer. He should
be a liberator. What difference can it make, Dushinka?"
(here her dressing-gown, agitated by a sweeping gesture of her
left arm toward the piano keys, opened wide and forced me to
look away for a moment). "What difference, I ask you
seriously " she had retrieved the loosened flap of the gar-
ment "whether you hold your hands high or low? Is that the
important thing? I ask you, and I want you to answer me
honestly and frankly is that the important thing?" I shook
my head dubiously. It certainly could not be important. Had I
wasted a year in slavishly taking the fingers suggested by the
composers in their printed works, or by Miss Taffel? Mrs.
Zamoshkin saw me waver, and pressed her advantage. "Does a
bird take lessons in flying? Does someone tell her to use the
right and not the left wing? All she needs is freedom! Release
her from the cage and she will fly away, never mind how! It's
the same with people. They have been tied and bound with
laws, with institutions, like ropes. They have been tied from
head to foot by governments, presidents, tsars, priests, rab-
bis" (I blanched at the word "rabbis," for I had lately
wondered about them in respect to their insistence on im-

The Freedom Method 197

posing their beliefs on everybody, especially the young). Mrs.
Zamoshkio continued: "Take love" stretching toward me a
cupped hand as if love, like a nesting bird, was in it, her voice
rising to an unpleasant pitch.

Her husband put his head out and said wearily: "Such
noise! How can one work?" and disappeared. Mrs. Zamoshkin
lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. "I ask you to consider
love! What have they done to love your priests, your rabbis,
your governments? They have tied it hand and foot with mar-
riage. When I told you Grisha was my husband, I was using a
word meant for slaves. Yes, he is my husband. But he is
more!" Again the husband poked his head through the door.
This time he said nothing, but he looked at his wife threat-
eningly. "All right, all right, Golubchick (Dove)," she cried
as he again vanished, "I'll be quiet." Then to me hoarsely:
"Artists need quiet. The soul needs silence. Someday you will
understand. But how can they get silence in a city? The noise
of the horse-cars the screaming of children the barrel-
organs . . ." Mrs. Zamoshkin went on in this manner for
some time, during which I learned that she had been a pupil
of a pupil of somebody called "the Great Anton Rubinstein,"
who, it was well known, had never practiced just played
sometimes missing notes, but what of that! Also that she had
met her husband five years previously in Russia, that they had
fallen in love instantaneously and had eloped to America,
that there was a slight difference in their ages "but love
laughs at time" that poetry did not pay, and that she was the
sole support of the house. Furthermore, Mr. Zamoshkin was
frail, subject to colds, and altogether unworldly. "If left to
himself," she confided, "he would be unable to boil a kettle
of water for tea he would perish." Each time I politely rose
to go, Mrs. Zamoshkin had some fascinating detail of her life
to relate. However, the practical upshot of my visit was that
I was to leave Miss Taffel and accept a scholarship from Mrs.
Zamoshkin (I told her I was in no position at the moment to

198 A LOST PARADISE

pay for my lessons), provided that I would give myself whole-
heartedly to her "Freedom" method in piano-playing.

The more I thought of the benefits of the "Freedom"
method, the more I considered my meeting with Mrs. Zamosh-
kin providential. I saw ahead of me a limitless repertoire of
music which would be mine without drudgery of fingerwork
and long hours of practice. I explained the new method to my
mother and Molly and paid a visit to Hannah to acquaint her
with it. They did not quite grasp Mrs. Zamoshkin' s phi-
losophy of piano-playing, but confessed that they were in no
position to judge it. Hannah thought I had a duty to Miss
Taffel, and that I must not mention Mrs. Zamoshkin or the
"Freedom" method to her, but tell her that I could no longer
raise the money for lessons. That, Hannah said, would give
Miss TafFel the chance to proffer a scholarship. Knowing Miss
Taffel's disposition well by then, I had no fears that she would
offer me free tuition. And so it proved. For after I had my
next lesson I told her I could no longer study with her, plead-
ing poverty. Miss Taffel said she was sorry, but I would have
to find another teacher. I left the basement much relieved
and went straight to Mrs. Zamoshkin.

Mrs. Zamoshkin held that the "Freedom" method carried
with it for the pupil the privilege of choosing the music to be
studied. Seeing me at a loss for the moment, Mrs. Zamoshkin
suggested the overture to Poet and Peasant, the music of which
stood on the music rack of the piano. I was taken with the title
and readily acceded; but when I opened the music, I saw that
it bristled with unusual technical problems and several time
changes. Mrs. Zamoshkin laughed away my fears and offered
to play the overture for me to prove how easy it was. "People
pay too much attention to notes," she said, as she composed
her large frame and her dressing-gown (she dressed fully only
when she went out), "and not enough to the spirit. The great
Anton Rubinstein always played wrong notes and nobody
cared. Why? Because he always brought out the soul of music.

The Freedom Method 199

Anybody can play the right notes, but how many can bring
out the Soul!"

Mrs. Zarnoshkin played the overture daringly and reck-
lessly, I thought. I turned the pages. In my eagerness to keep
up with her I sometimes turned a page too soon or too late.
My teacher never paused or hesitated, but composed a few
measures of her own on the spot. As I listened and watched
the music at the same time, I realized that the impromptu
interpolations had a wild, gypsy character that contrasted
violently with the more classic style of the overture itself.
How closely she had modeled herself on the art of the great
Anton Rubinstein! For she quite disregarded, for the most
part, the printed notes, especially in intricate or rapid pas-
sages! In the slower, lyric sections, she brought out what I
presumed was the soul. On these she lingered, caressing some
notes by raising and depressing her wrist, while her face as-
sumed a pained expression and she shook her head ecstatically,
as if the beauty of the moment was too much for her to bear.
When she arrived at the last page she pressed the loud pedal
down and kept her foot on it remorselessly, and with flashing
arms and fingers let loose a babel of sound such as I had never
before heard. Though it had little relation to the notes on the
page, it was a stirring finale in itself, and when it was over I
saw that Mrs. Zamoshkin's face was triumphant, though
covered with sweat. "You may have noticed," she gasped,
wiping her face with a large handkerchief edged with torn,
black lace, "that I left out some of the notes. But I didn't leave
out the souls of the Poet and Peasant! No! That I didn't."
To this I assented, though it seemed to me she had been more
successful with the soul of the Poet than with that of the
Peasant.

In the half year that I studied with Mrs. Zamoshkin I
"interpreted" at least two dozen compositions, most of them
transcriptions of orchestral works or arias and songs. Mrs.
Zamoshkin denied the existence of pianistic difficulties or, at

200 A LOST PARADISE

any rate, treated them summarily when she herself met them.
When I found that I was unable to negotiate certain passages,
she would tell me to regard the spirit, not the letter, and,
brushing me off the piano stool, would demonstrate how to
achieve the one without engaging the other. The effects she
conveyed were always dramatic. They excited in me a kind of
uneasy admiration for her self-confidence and daring. I learned
to rely on the loud pedal in critical technical moments, and
while the results were unclear, Mrs. Zamoshkin soothed my
doubts by admiring the "impression" I had created with
seemingly recalcitrant notes. As for octaves, thirds, sixths,
arpeggios, and all the other problems of piano-playing, Mrs.
Zamoshkin called them "a bag of tricks" for the amusement of
the superficial, but promised that if I really wanted to acquire
them they would come to me of themselves easily with age
and experience. In the meantime I must not feel intimidated
when the music called for them, but do the best I could.

The news of the "Freedom method" spread quickly in the
neighborhood, and Mrs. Zamoshkin was soon besieged by
pupils, both beginners who looked forward to a speedy con-
quest of "pieces" without much practicing and students of the
piano who had hitherto believed that one had to work hard
to master the instrument and were delighted to find they had
been quite wrong, and that "methods" existed that dispensed
with the drudgery of work. Mrs. Zamoshkin was charging
twenty-five cents a lesson. Notwithstanding this high fee, she
was quickly making inroads among the students of teachers
like Miss TafFel, who charged only ten cents and offered an
hour's practice time.

I enjoyed the distinction of being her only scholarship pupil,
and indeed 1 came to be regarded as a member of her house-
hold. She continually played and sang her settings of her hus-
band's gypsy songs for me, gave me tea and "broken cake,"
and made me a confidant of everything that appertained to her
husband and herself. She loved Mr. Zamoshkin inordinately

The Freedom Method 201

as both her husband and her "child," as she called him, ex-
plaining that she had never had a child of her own, and that
her husband, because of his youth and temperamental nature,
was in many respects a child to her. Certainly no child I had
known was ever so indulged and coddled. There was hardly
a moment when Mrs. Zamoshkin was not preparing some-
thing for him to drink or eat, and in the middle of a lesson
she would say: "Keep right on playing, dear, while I boil
some milk for Grisha." Mr. Zamoshkin kept to his room
mostly, and I saw him only at such times as he would put his
head out to complain about something. It was a mystery to
me how he managed to write his poems amid the never-ending
sound of lessons and practice. He wrote only in Russian, con-
sidering the English language harsh and unmusical, and Yid-
dish hopelessly vulgar. Mrs. Zamoshkin called him a genius
and prophesied that someday his works would be published
and he would be recognized as another Nekrassov or Lermon-
tov. I shared Mrs. Zamoshkin' s indignation at the neglect her
gifted husband was enduring, for my own efforts to have Mr.
Katz publish the gypsy songs had come to nothing. Mr. Katz,
to my astonishment, did not find the gypsy poems and their
musical setting "real." They seemed real enough to me. In-
deed, they had a savagery that invoked gypsies of the hottest
blood imaginable.

Besides saving money on piano lessons, I was put in the way
of earning a substantial sum through the kindness of Mr. Katz.
Perhaps he wished to atone for his rejection of the gypsy
songs by doing something handsome for me. One day when I
went in to pay him an installment on the money I owed him
for music, he told me that Cantor Feinstein a great name on
the East Side was holding auditions for choirboys, and that
the pay for those boys who were accepted would be two dol-
lars and a half for the Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur holi-
days. I lost no time in getting to the basement of the Madison
Street Synagogue, where the auditions were being held. I had a

2O2 A LOST PARADISE

flexible alto voice, and I read music easily at sight. After a
short test I was engaged. For six weeks before the holidays
we had lengthy rehearsals after school. The music of the
choir, in four-part harmony, was craftily integrated with the
solos of the cantor, and required a great deal of practice on the
part of the choir both alone and in conjunction with the cantor.
I enjoyed these rehearsals very much, especially those with
the cantor, whose flights of coloratura were breath-taking.
While his voice soared away into the topmost reaches of the
vocal scale in a hazardous display of trills, runs, and scales,
like an acrobat doing impossible feats on a high trapeze, we
would sustain beautiful solid chords underneath his daring
flights. The cantor had written the music himself, and had
most sensibly provided himself with moments of rest. During
these the choir held forth with ordinary diversionary passages,
so as not to erase from the minds of the congregation the more
important virtuoso contribution of the cantor.

Three or four days before Rosh Hashonah, one of the older
choirboys called a secret meeting at the fountain on Rutgers
Place. When we had all assembled, he got up on one of the
stone benches and addressed us. He told us that the Madison
Street Synagogue was raising the price of tickets for the holi-
days, mainly to meet the increased demands of our cantor for a
higher fee. Why shouldn't we, he asked, share in this raise?
The cantor couldn't do without us. Furthermore, we had
worked very hard, and our expert support would contribute
to his success. Our leader therefore proposed that we go to
the cantor at once and ask for a fifty-cent raise. Should the
cantor refuse, we must be prepared to strike.

The suggestion was put to a vote and unanimously ap-
proved. The cantor, realizing that the imminence of the holi-
days would not give him time to form a new choir, reluctantly
acceded. And on Yom Kippur night I triumphantly brought
home three one-dollar bills, the first money I had ever earned.
Though the day had been long and there were moments when

The Freedom Method 203

my head grew light from lack of food I found a great satis-
faction in singing with the most celebrated cantor in America
and in wearing the shiny skullcap and beautiful silk tallis
(prayer shawl) the cantor lent to his choirboys. Furthermore,
I saw at first hand the splendors of a "temple," for the Madi-
son Street Synagogue was a far cry from the poor, dilapidated
hired room where the average East Side congregation wor-
shipped.

The previous year on Yom Kippur I had accompanied my
father to his synagogue on Henry Street, and had scarcely sur-
vived the ordeal. At least one hundred men and boys were
packed in a room that could not have accommodated fifty.
Like every Yom Kippur I had known before or have known
since, this one was unbearably warm and humid. I had taken
the precaution the day before of buying a tiny phial of "Yom
Kippur drops" for a penny, and whenever I grew faint I
would take a whiff of the drops and feel better for a while.
But in the late afternoon there came a moment when the men
removed their shoes and prayed in their stocking feet. Inured
to individual odors only, I was unable to tolerate the massed
onslaught. I fainted dead away, and had to be carried out-
doors and revived with many applications of "Yom Kippur
drops" and dashes of cold water on my face. How different
was the roomy temple on Madison Street, where open win-
dows on opposite sides of the room provided a slight cross-
current of warm air, and the congregation did not remove its
collective shoes!

My three dollars could not have arrived at a more oppor-
tune time. My mother's teeth had been troubling her for years,
and many of them had been extracted. On her most recent
visit to the dentist on Rivington Street she had been advised
to have the rest of them removed and replaced by an arti-
ficial set. This she agreed to on the representation that she
would then be done with dentists forever. The new teeth
would be costly, but the dentist was willing to undertake the

204 A LOST PARADISE

job on an installment arrangement of fifty cents a week. Two
of my dollars went to the dentist as an advance, fifty cents
went to Mr. Katz, and the remaining half dollar I was allowed
to do with as I pleased. I felt proud to be able to contribute so
large a sum toward my mother's new teeth. The parents of
some of my playmates had complete sets of teeth, which they
removed at bedtime and put in a glass of water for the night.
Now I should also be in a position to boast about my mother's
"plates." A gold cap was of course more ostentatious and
therefore more desirable. But a whole new set of evenly
matched teeth, removable at will, was the next best thing, for
while they did not command, like a gold cap, instant attention,
there was no possibility of mistaking them for one's natural
teeth, because of their whiteness and regularity.

With my own half dollar I began to assemble a library of
books. My taste had suddenly taken an unusual turn away
from the classics of poetry and short tales we read in school
and toward a new and more exciting literature of adventure.
The Rutgers Streeters were, by and large, reading the works
of Horatio Alger, the adventures of Nick Carter, the detec-
tive, the weekly serial The Liberty Boys of *j6, and, in a lesser
measure, Oliver Optic and George Henty. All these appeared
in paper covers and were rotated among those of the gang
who contributed to their purchase. The Alger books cost
eight cents apiece, the weekly serials two cents, and all were
bought second-hand. With my very first Alger book I felt
that a new horizon had opened for me, for they were not only
embodiments of action, but action prompted by the highest
ethical principles. Then, too, they vindicated Mr. Silver's
philosophy of sturdy, aggressive individualism. Horatio Alger
convinced me through art that poor and rich were alike in-
dispensable to a great country like America.

I now became aware of America, where before I had been
aware only of a few square miles in New York's East Side.
The America of Horatio Alger contained, curiously enough,

The Freedom Method 205

no Jews. There were no divisions of "classes" and "masses."
There were rich and poor, but the rich could suddenly become
poor, and the poor gradually became rich. It was a country of
limitless opportunity for the moral, the virtuous, and the in-
dustrious. The poorest, the obscurest boy could aspire to the
richest, the most beautiful girl. As I read my very first Alger
book, I fancied that the author was writing about me. How
did it happen that this great writer knew the secret aspirations
of a young boy he had never seen? I was the "Erie Train
Boy." I did not sell candy and peanuts on a train, but I had the
Erie Train Boy's desire to better myself and, above all, to
help my mother. My mother was not a widow; but if she had
been, I would have been as loving and considerate a son as the
Erie Train Boy had been. And what extraordinary insight
into the mind and heart of a boy Mr. Alger revealed! He had
endowed his hero with all my characteristics. I, too, hated
bullies and was quick to right injustice. The only differences
between us were owing to the difference In bringing up and
environment. The Erie Train Boy had never questioned the
social order because there was no Mr. Strassmeir to in-
fluence him to question It. For him the social order was com-
posed of good and bad people, and what else could people be
but good or bad? Extraordinary, too, was Horatio Alger's
belief in the existence of luck, especially in the lives of the
poor and deserving. How often had I daydreamed about being
accosted by a man who would place a wallet, fat with money,
in my hands and saying: "I know you are good and are in
need; take this and ask no questions, nor ever try to find me"
would disappear! How often had I (out of compassion)
given my penny allowance for candy to a tattered, misshapen
beggar, with the secret hope that I should someday be the
beneficiary of his accumulated wealth, for it was well known
that the worst-looking mendicants left the largest legacies !

A recurring daydream had me stopping a runaway horse
and carriage, thus saving the life of its only passenger, a lovely

2O6 A LOST PARADISE

young lady belonging to a rich family. And now, marvelous
to read, I saw my hopes and dreams coming true in Horatio
Alger's books. Here on the printed page before me a poor boy
stopped a runaway equipage and saved the life of a beautiful
young lady whose father was miraculously yet justly the
president of an important bank. What insight into the soul of a
boy! And what a country America was for a boy to grow up
in! I do not recall worrying about the absence of Jews in the
America of Horatio Alger. Certainly so democratic a country
could be counted on to embrace and cherish people of all
faiths. The fact that all the Alger heroes were Christians was
merely accidental. I had little doubt that I, too, could have
been an Erie Train Boy. I knew I should have behaved ex-
actly like the one in Horatio Alger's story.

On the other hand, I often thought I should have preferred
living in America during the period of the Revolutionary War
as one of the Liberty Boys of '76. Business opportunities were
scarcer in those days, but nobody required business oppor-
tunities at the most crucial moment in American history.
What the boys of that fateful year desired exclusively was the
opportunity to serve their country, and those opportunities
could not have been more abundant. I could never have
imagined that the Revolution owed so much to the American
boy not the soldier in uniform, but the younger boys who
could not bear the thought of sitting idly by while their
country was desperately engaged in throwing off its foreign
yoke. Even General Washington leaned heavily on the
courage and resourcefulness of these boys out of uniform.
This nation would never have been freed without their aid.
At Valley Forge, at Trenton, at every great crisis of our
Revolutionary cause, these Liberty Boys saved the day. They
exposed the traitorous Aaron Burr and captured the suave
Major Andre. They were everywhere except, curiously
enough, in the history books!

The future held several interesting possibilities for me, and

The Freedom Method 207

I escaped into it frequently, especially at those times when the
present began to show a forbidding side, as it did in the alarm-
ing decline in the profits of our delicatessen store. There were
weeks when the store showed no profits at all. And as with
our living-quarters, the first of each month again became a day
to be dreaded. My parents held many consultations on the
advisability of selling the store or, if no one should offer to
buy it, of dissolving the business and returning the fixtures to
the Mandlebaum Sausage Factory as part payment of our
debt. We could never hope to repay Mr. Beylinson, but that
was not a serious consideration. My mother believed that
Mr. Beylinson, out of sentiment, did not expect to be repaid.
My parents would no sooner have decided to abandon the
store, however, than there would come an unexpected spurt
in sales, which my mother chose to regard as a trend and an
augury of future prosperity. Whereupon plans for its sale or
dissolution were hastily abandoned.

Fortunately, during this time of indecision my father com-
pleted his rabbinical studies and became free to set up as a
shochet and mohel and to perform marriage ceremonies. My
brother-in-law, the house-painter, painted a small tin sign that
read: "Morris Chotzinoff, Practical Mohel (Circumciser),
ist Floor Back," which, with the janitor's permission, he
nailed to the wall in the entrance hall. My father was averse
to the change from Moshe Baer to Morris, but, anticipating
this, Joe had made the change on his own initiative as a gesture
toward Americanization, and my father was presented with a
fait accompli. At home and among his friends he was called
Moshe Baer. As for the adjective "practical," Joe had merely
copied it from the signs of other East Side mohels. According
to these, all mohels considered themselves "practical," and I,
and presumably everyone else, assumed that that was what
mohels had to be to invite patronage. "Practical" of course
meant "practicing." Yet I used to doubt the necessity of the
adjective on the signs of the neighborhood mohels. It seemed

208 A LOST PARADISE

to me supererogatory; for if a mohel was not practicing, he
would hardly put up a sign to that effect.

My father's first circumcision came through the recom-
mendation of Zalman Reich. Mr. Reich's six sons were most
prolific, and my father was constantly invited to the Reichs'
to celebrate the birth of a grandchild with a glass of "schnapps"
(whisky) and a piece of herring. On the arrival of another
male grandchild, Zalman Reich told my father that he had
ordered his son to engage him as mohel, but that he had per-
mitted the mother of the baby to assume that my father was a
"practical" mohel of long standing. My father made much of
this proof of Zalman Reich's absolute power over his children
and his trust in the steadiness of the new mohel' s hand.

A week after the birth of the Reich grandson, my father
and I repaired to the son's house. I went in the capacity of as-
sistant and aide. The house was full of friends and neighbors
to witness the ceremonial operation, and I felt very important
as I made my way through them behind my father, carrying
the case of knives, the whetstone, and the cotton wadding.
To prevent the baby from catching cold, all the windows had
been shut tight, though it was midsummer and very hot. We
went into the bedroom, where the mother, with her breasts
exposed, reclined sideways on a beautiful iron bedstead orna-
mented with numberless shiny brass globes. The baby,
smothered in long clothes, lay at her side and sucked greedily
at her right breast. Mezuzahs were tacked to the door to ward
off evil.

A woman removed the child from the bed, placed him on a
small pillow, and carried him into the front room, where the
circumcision would take place. The mother was loath to give
up the child. She cried a little and begged my father not to hurt
him too much. In the front room the pillow with the baby
on it was placed on a table and the baby's garments and diapers
removed. I opened the case of knives and handed one to my
father, who examined it critically and tested its sharpness by

The Freedom Method 209

deftly cutting a hair from his hand. A basin of water and a
towel were brought. The spectators, with the sandak (god-
father) at their head, formed a circle around the table and my
father and me. The woman who had brought the baby in now
held him down firmly by the shoulders, and the sandak held
down his legs. My father then performed the act of circum-
cision with astonishing swiftness for a first attempt. The baby
began to wail and the mother in the bedroom set up a sympa-
thetic weeping. The woman replaced the diaper and long gar-
ments and took the baby, still crying weakly, back to its
mother. Cakes and wine were passed around, and the gather-
ing grew merry. I replaced the knife (after my father had
wiped it clean) and felt very professional and quite superior
to some boys of my age who clustered around me admiringly.

Zalman Reich's son gave my father three dollars for the
operation. This was the standard fee for a circumcision, but we
thought it was handsome, considering the inexperience of my
father. Two circumcisions a week would about bring in as
much profit as the delicatessen store made in its best weeks.
But it might be years before my father's skill would be well
enough known to bring him so large a number of circum-
cisions.

Some weeks later my father was engaged to slaughter sixty
chickens at a butcher's shop in Scammel Street for the Purim
holidays. The price agreed on was two chickens for a nickel.
On a Saturday evening I accompanied my father to the
butcher's. My job was to take each doomed chicken from its
coop and pluck out its feathers in the vicinity of the jugular
vein, preparatory to my father's slitting its throat. The noise
set up by the chickens was deafening, and the small basement
shop appeared snowing with feathers. My father, with his
jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, stood with a knife held be-
tween his teeth, in front of him a large tin vat. As I handed
him each cackling, reluctant chicken (I can still see their
glassy eyes fixed on me reproachfully), he bent its neck back-

210 A LOST PARADISE

ward with his left hand until the throat almost snapped. With
his right hand he took the knife from his mouth, made a single
pass with it over the jugular vein, and held the fluttering bird
directly over the vat, which now received its spasmodic spurts
of blood. I soon got used to the baleful look the chickens gave
me before they expired, and I prepared them for the knife as
rapidly as my father finished them off. The slaughter was over
by midnight, when we washed the blood from our clothes and
hands and left for home, a dollar and a half richer.

My father was pleased with his new activities, and our
future began to look rosier. On the other hand, the delicates-
sen store was now a definite liability, and its liquidation could
no longer be postponed. My mother gave notice to the land-
lord that the store premises would be vacated by the end of
the month, and the Mandlebaum Sausage Factory was ad-
vised to remove the store fixtures before that time. At this
moment in our affairs my brother Solomon arrived from
Waterbury, Connecticut, with good news. He had succeeded
in obtaining a position for my father at a slaughterhouse on
the outskirts of the city. The wages were twelve dollars
and four pounds of meat a week. We would move, rent-free,
into the upper story of a house Albert and Solomon owned in
one of the best neighborhoods. Thus all our troubles would be
over, and we could live in comfort and security in a fine Con-
necticut town for the rest of our lives.

My father and I greeted this plan with enthusiasm. My
mother was more reserved, though she did not oppose it. I
figured that she was loath to leave Hannah and Molly. Indeed,
she would have been hard put to it to find any other grounds
for opposing the plan. Molly, as a marriageable young girl,
would, of course, be better off in New York than in a country
town whose Jewish population was negligible. On learning
about our plans to remove to Waterbury, Hannah invited her
sister to make her home with her in her apartment on Seventh
Street, between Avenue B and Avenue C. By the end of the

The Freedom Method 211

month the store had been dismantled; on the very day we left
for Waterbury a junk-dealer bought the entire contents of our
own apartment (except for the few household items we would
need) for the sum of fifteen dollars. Considering that the
dealer, on first looking the things over, announced that he
couldn't in honesty offer more than two dollars and that he
wasn't even sure he could realize that sum on a resale, it
seemed to me that my mother had taken advantage of him.
Several times he left the house in indignation, but he always
returned a few minutes later with what, after consigning my
mother and her furniture to perdition, he swore was his final
offer. When he advanced his offer to ten dollars and vowed
that if that was turned down we should never see him again, I
implored my mother to close with him before it was too late.
But she knew better. And as the dealer reluctantly counted out
fifteen crumpled and soiled dollar bills into her hand, she threw
me a contemptuous glance.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Connecticut Interlude 1

w

^E WENT to Waterbury by water and rail.
Early in the morning we walked to the foot of Gouverneur
Street. A pushcart bearing our clothes and bedding, our pots
and pans, our cutlery, and such household odds and ends as my
mother wished to take along had preceded us to the pier. The
boat went no farther than Bridgeport, but we checked our bag-
gage direct to Waterbury. At Bridgeport we walked to the
railroad station, which was close by, and after an hour's wait
the Waterbury train came along and we climbed aboard it in
haste, so that we might find seats together.

Children between the ages of six and twelve required a half
ticket, but no ticket of any kind was bought for me. I was
cautioned to slump down in my seat when the conductor came
along and try to look as young as possible. As we left each
station and the conductor came in to punch the tickets, I slid

A Connecticut Interlude / 2 1 3

down in my seat as far as I could and remained in a cramped
and uncomfortable position until my mother signaled that the
coast was clear. Once the conductor looked at me sharply and
asked how old I was. My mother gave him a charming smile
and said: "Baby!" one of the few English words she knew.
Fearful that the man's suspicions would only be confirmed by
an exaggeration so gross, I hastily interposed and said I was
five and three-quarters, in the most childish voice I could
muster. The conductor, still looking dubious, passed on, and
I waited until I heard the door of our car shut behind him be-
fore I thought it safe to sit up. But he gave us no further
trouble.

It was the longest train ride I had ever taken. I sat close to
the window and watched the lovely countryside come into
view, unfold for me in a semicircle, and roll off somewhere
behind the train. After an hour my mother produced the in-
evitable kuchlech for herself and my father, and corned-beef
sandwiches with pickles and mustard for Sarah, my little sister
Goldie, and me. Many passengers had left the train at the
frequent stops we made, and we had almost the entire car to
ourselves by the time the conductor announced "Naw-
gatuck! Naw-gatuck? Next station, Waterbury!" We left
Naugatuck, and the train ran alongside a river bank. We came
in sight of a field where boys were playing baseball. The river,
which had at first been clean and sparkling, became muddy
and shallow. Pieces of rusty iron stuck up from its bottom and
lined its banks. In the distance we saw long, low buildings with
tall chimneys from which poured heavy smoke and live
cinders. The train slowed up. The conductor opened the door
and shouted: "Water-bury! Water-bury? Waterbury!" We
gathered our belongings and moved toward the door.

Flanked by my mother and father, who tried to hide me
from the conductor, I walked with my knees bent and my
shoulders hunched in a final effort to look my alleged age.
The conductor was now on the station platform giving a help-

214 A LOST PARADISE

ing hand to the people leaving the train. I doubled up, climbed
down the steps onto the footstool, then stepped to the ground.
Nor did I straighten up until the train began to move and the
conductor hopped aboard it.

Albert and Solomon were waiting at the station with a horse
and wagon. There was some delay in getting our baggage, but
it was presently piled on the wagon and we started off. We
drove through wide streets, tree-lined, and up a steep hill,
turning in to Burton Street, where we were to live. Burton
Street was wide, too, and tree-lined, and each wooden house
was painted white and had a front lawn and a back yard.
Many years later, longing to see Burton Street again, I re-
visited it and was amazed to find the street rather narrow than
broad, as I had remembered it. But it looked very wide when I
first set eyes on it, very leafy, and charmingly rural. When
contrasted with Rutgers Place, it was country.

Our house had a white picket fence around it. There were
a downstairs and an upstairs porch, both open, and a great
horse-chestnut tree stood close by, its branches almost touch-
ing both balustrades. Our apartment occupied the second
story. Its size and splendor took my breath away. Solomon,
looking very pleased, conducted us from room to room. He
had furnished it completely except for bedding, and apparently
had spared no expense. He took us first into the kitchen, by a
back entrance. There stood a large, shiny black stove orna-
mented with elaborate nickel facings. Linoleum covered the
entire floor. A large, open, white cabinet held a complete set
of dishes, brilliantly colored and set out in tiers. There were
three sunlit bedrooms (I had always thought bedrooms were
obliged to be sunless and dark), one with a double brass bed,
the others with two single wooden beds in each! The dining-
room was vast. A large pot-bellied tin stove stood in the
center, its stovepipe rising halfway to the ceiling, then bend-
ing and continuing straight across the room to a hole in the
wall above a window.

A Connecticut Interlude / 2 1 5

With a feeling for climax, Solomon left the front room for
the last. When he threw open its door, we were dazzled by
what we saw. Our eyes were first of all drawn to the floor by
a brilliantly flowered carpet, so vivid as to nullify everything
else in the room, even the wallpaper, whose colors and design
would by themselves have been overpowering. And right
against a wall, near a window facing the street, stood a piano^
a shiny, tall, upright piano of unmistakable mahogany, as
solid as any I had seen on display in Spector's store on Grand
Street. Quite overcome with emotion, and forgetting my
secret, I ran to the piano, seated myself on the revolving stool,
and launched into The Burning of Rome. It was only when I ar-
rived at the moment of Nero's appearance on the balcony of
his palace that I remembered that no one but my mother and
two sisters knew that I could play. I stopped abruptly and
wheeled around. To my surprise, my mother was smiling. My
father and my brothers looked quite bewildered, and regarded
me with curiosity. My mother appeared to enjoy the sensation
I had caused. "Don't stop," she cried. "Go on! Go on!" And
I turned back and finished The Burning of Rome with an extra
show of bravura.

When I finished, my mother revealed the story of my secret
musical studies. It was a carefully doctored version, in which
there had never been an outlay of a single penny on her part,
for either tuition or music books, both of which grateful and
enthusiastic teachers had been only too happy to contribute.
Indeed, my dash and agility at the piano gave her story
plausibility and reduced my father's grievance to mere
petulance at having been kept in the dark about my inex-
pensive accomplishment. As for the presence of the piano in
our new home, Solomon explained that he had acquired it
along with all the other household furnishings as a result of a
"foreclosure," a mysterious event that he did not deign to ex-
plain, but in which my mother professed to see the hand of
providence.

2l6 A LOST PARADISE

For days I could not bear to be away from the piano. I knew
that I must not play it when my father was dovening (praying) .
But the moment he took off his prayer shawl and phylacteries
in the morning, I went into the front room, closed the door,
and began to play. But before a week had passed, my father
complained that my never-ceasing "banging" had become un-
endurable. "And where will it end?" he demanded, a question
my mother brushed aside with the flat assertion that a child
must have some amusement and with the disturbing statement
that there were less innocuous pastimes than music a young
boy might be tempted to pursue. What these might be she
would not tell.

Playing the piano on the Sabbath was at first out of the
question. But after a month of strictly observed Sabbaths, I
could no longer resist the temptation to play on the forbidden
day. And one Saturday morning from a front-room window I
watched my father turn the corner at Burton Street into North
Main Street. When he was out of sight, I boldly sat down at
the piano and began to play. I expected my mother to rush in
to tell me to stop, but to my surprise she left me undisturbed
for a long time. When she came into the room, it was only
to warn me that my father would be returning home at any
moment. She must have pledged my sisters and my brother's
family downstairs to secrecy, for I continued to play the
piano Saturday mornings without my father's knowledge.

The "Freedom method," apart from releasing me from the
drudgery of ordinary practice, also solved the problem of a
teacher. For the nature of the method was such that, once it
had been grasped, a teacher could prove a hindrance to the
development of one's individuality. I knew, at the moment, no
piano teachers in Waterbury. In any case a provincial city,
hours distant from New York, most likely had never even
heard of the "Freedom method" and of its two exponents,
Mme Zamoshkin and the Great Anton Rubinstein. I felt
confident that I could learn to play the most difficult music of

A Connecticut Interlude / 217

the past and present without the aid of a teacher. The problem
was how to obtain the music. I knew my small repertoire by
heart, but I felt the need of adding to it continually, both for
my own profit and for the pleasure of my audience, who
might, I feared, soon get tired of the three overtures, The
Burning of Rome, and the half-dozen smaller programmatic
items I kept repeating. This problem, however, soon solved
itself, and in the most unexpected fashion.

Since the London days my father had suffered much from
headaches. Having seen a remedy advertised called "Bromo-
Seltzer," he sent me, one day, to purchase a bottle at the drug-
store on North Main Street. When I paid the ten cents, the
clerk not only gave me a bottle of Bromo-Seltzer, but asked
me to choose one piece of sheet music from a large assortment
piled up on the counter, explaining that the Bromo-Seltzer
people were giving out a printed musical work for the piano
with each purchase of the remedy. I examined the pile and was
astonished at the variety and range of the compositions. I
should have liked to carry away all the numbers. Choosing
only one posed a heartbreaking problem. At last I decided on
the "Miserere" from // Trouatore because it recalled my Lon-
don and Stanton Street days, when I followed the hurdy-
gurdies from street to street. The excerpt was an easy ar-
rangement, but it included the words of the chorus, and
Manrico's aria. "Ah! I have sighed to rest me" was printed
above the notes of the aria, and I understood for the first time
why the melody had so moved me. Whatever else he was in
Verdi's opera, Manrico in his "Bromo-Seltzer aria" was mel-
ancholy to an unbearable degree, even though in a major key.
Wherever he had languished when he sang the aria in the
opera, he must have been nobly and mellifluously unhappy.
I was consumed to know why, but there was no enlighten-
ment beyond the expression of his unhappiness in the words
and music. And what did the opening chords of the chorus,
minor and softly massive, identified only hazily by words in a

2l8 A LOST PARADISE

strange language (presumably Latin), picture? A Christian
church perhaps, but grander than the one on the corner of
Rutgers and Henry streets, from which, on Sunday mornings, I
used to hear, over an organ foundation of sound, voices chant-
ing, but in unison, crudely, not in somber chords as in the
"Miserere"

My gratitude to the Bromo-Seltzer people for their largess
was unalloyed for the time it took me to master and commit to
memory the "Miserere" When I had done that, I realized
with a shock that the growth of my musical repertoire would
be dictated by the frequency of my father's headaches. I saw,
with a sinking of the heart, that a single bottle of Bromo-
Seltzer held sufficient powder to relieve the recurring head-
aches for a month, while I was able to learn a new composi-
tion in a matter of three or four days! I took to watching not
only my father but the rest of the family for signs of migraine.
My mother, unfortunately, suffered from maladies beyond the
scope of Bromo-Seltzer to alleviate. I took to withdrawing a
teaspoonful of the white substance secretly now and then,
and so hastened the purchase of a new bottle. My mother
sometimes wondered at the extraordinary rate of the family's
consumption of Bromo-Seltzer. Over a period of a year, how-
ever, I acquired, through the agency of my father's real and
my own simulated headaches, more than a dozen compositions
of the most piquant variety. I learned them quickly, ascribing
my skill to the liberating properties of the "Freedom method."
In later years I discovered with a sense of shock that the
Bromo-Seltzer people had simplified the pieces to the lowest
common denominator of current proficiency on the piano.

Burton Street and the neighborhood around it were Chris-
tian territory, but across the car tracks on North Main Street,
in the rear of the Waterbury Brass and Foundry Company,
there was a ghetto-like area called Jerusalem, where most of
my brothers' friends resided. In due course these families
became our friends, and we were invited to Jerusalem to visit

A Connecticut Interlude / 219

and drink tea. My brothers had built up the greater part of
Jerusalem. With no capital of their own they had erected a
dozen or so two-story wooden houses, each with a porch, and
had rented the apartments to those of their friends and ac-
quaintances who had previously lived dispersed among the
Christians of the town. My brother Solomon was a habitue
at the Feins reins', a family who lived on the first floor of one
of these houses, and we had not been long in Waterbury before
he presented us to them. The Feinsteins had two daughters,
Bernice, a young lady of marriageable age, and Hannah, a girl
of about my own age. It was clear that the Feinsteins regarded
my brother Solomon as a suitor for Bernice. Mrs. Feinstein
praised her elder daughter extravagantly to her face in my
brother's presence, attributing to her all the virtues of an
efficient wife and several purely ornamental accomplishments
such as piano-playing and the writing of poetry. Bernice, a
pretty, plump brunette, who, it seemed to me, could inspire
affection with her looks alone, was sincerely modest and
always decried her mother's fulsome praises, which she would
interrupt with u Oh! Stop, Mamma!" or c 'Don't be silly,
Mamma!" Mrs. Feinstein loudly brushed aside her daughter's
protestations. "Oh! Stop, Mamma!" she would mimic. "Why
should Mamma stop? Is Mamma telling lies? No! Is it wrong
for Mamma to say that you are an educated girl? (She grad-
uated from high school with the best marks!) Is it wrong to
tell the world you can recite? Is it wrong to say you play the
piano? Play for Solomon The Eight Sufferers"

In the end Bernice always did what her mother bade her.
She turned back the flaps of the gray rubber sheathing that
completely encased their upright piano, opened the lid,
screwed the piano stool up as high as it could go (I noticed
that girls and women always sat high at the piano), and
launched into The Eight Sufferers. I liked The Eight Sufferers,
and I was hoping that Bernice would lend the music to me so
that I might learn to play it by heart. The composition, by a

220 A LOST PARADISE

composer whose name I have forgotten, was a memorial to
eight anarchists who had figured in the "Chicago strike" in
the year 1886. This unfortunate octet were tried for murder
and found guilty, and four were executed. On learning the de-
tails of the tragedy I at once took the side of labor against
capital, and, like the composer of The Eight Sufferers, fiercely
resented the martyrdom of the eight. The Feinsteins, too,
were on the side of the martyrs, but Bernice's interpretation
of the piece lacked, I thought, the pathos inherent in the ter-
rible situation of the eight during their trial and the nobility
of soul implicit in their defiance of capitalism.

The impact of The Eight Sufferers on my brother was,
naturally, modified by the circumstance that he himself was
something of a capitalist, though in a small way. By nature
timid, retiring, and sentimental, he was, however, also moved
by the sufferings, if not by the ideology, of the eight. During
her daughter's performance Mrs. Feinstein watched him nar-
rowly for signs of a favorable reaction to the performer. She
could not, of course, know that his heart at that period be-
longed to his own foster sister, Molly. Molly had herself in-
timated as much to me and, indeed, I had observed Solomon's
marked attentions to her when she came to Waterbury to
spend a week's vacation with us. My mother favored the al-
liance, but Molly herself could feel nothing for Solomon "in
that way," and accepted his invitation on Sunday afternoon to
take a buggy ride to an amusement park beyond the city limits
only on condition that I would go along. I was, of course, in-
vited to accompany them, and I spent an unforgettable after-
noon.

I had not seen an amusement park since we left Russia.
This one was a large tract of forest, with long tables and
benches for picnickers who brought their own provisions.
There was an open-air theater, and Solomon paid thirty cents
for three tickets. We sat on a long bench close to the stage and
enjoyed a variety show that lasted more than two hours.

A Connecticut Interlude /

221

There were vocalists, wire-walkers, trick bicycle-riders and
comedians, and, for a finale, a minstrel show. The black-face
artists interested me most, and their songs opened for me a
new world of careless, ingratiating music, while the "lyrics"
painted the Negroes as a jolly, pleasure-loving, humorously
fatalistic people. I saw "soft shoe" dancing for the first time,
and I gave myself up to the enchantment of its effortless
rhythms. "Please go 'way, and let me sleep. Don't disturb my
slumber deep," a black-face pair of men, clad in identical
checked suits, with starched collars, straw hats, and canes, in-
toned dreamily and improvisationally, sometimes hurrying a
word, sometimes drawing it out, while their feet tapped out
soft, insistent rhythms, strictly in time. It was my intro-
duction to "nibato," though it would be years before I could
thus identify this strange relationship of melody and rhythm.

We moved to Waterbury sometime in August, and school
did not begin until the second week in September. I had more
than a month for idling and getting to know the city, time to
make friends, practice the piano intensively, and explore the
fields and forests that lay about a half-hour's walk from Burton
Street. Burton Street itself was "country" enough for me. Its
grassy front and back yards, little flower gardens, and great
horse-chestnuts and elms very nearly approximated the
pastoral scenes that climaxed the excursions Molly and I had
used to embark upon at the foot of Montgomery Street on
hot, sticky summer mornings. Directly opposite our house
began Elm Street, which after about two hundred feet of level
ground suddenly rose as a steep hill and continued so for a
quarter of a mile. Its summit, bare of houses, marked the be-
ginning of virgin country. Standing there, one could not see
the city below, so thick was the vegetation, so tall and close
together the trees. I found a small clearing, where I decided
to build myself a rustic hideaway, something like the houses
of boards and pine branches my father and some neighbors

222 A LOST PARADISE

put together in the back yard of our tenement in East Broad-
way during Succoth. I borrowed a saw, a hammer, and nails
from Solomon, and in a single morning I constructed a small
sylvan retreat. There I used to sit for hours at a time listening
to the birds and imitating their music in the hope of drawing
them down to visit me. I told my mother that I communi-
cated with many birds, but most intimately with one who sang
"Bobwhite." And I fibbed a little and said that the bobwhites
and I were now on the most agreeable footing and that I must
not forget to take along with me a roll soaked in milk with
which to feed my new friends, carrying out the promise I
had made them in bird language. 1 did, indeed, scatter tiny
pieces of a milk-soaked roll in the vicinity of my hut, but when
I kept watch, no birds appeared to eat them, though I could
hear their notes in the trees above me. The next morning,
however, I could find no traces of the bread. I hoped that in
time they would overcome their shyness and not wait until I
was gone to pick up the crumbs I scattered. But they never
did, and at length I grew impatient and angry with them. And
when Chubb, a boy who lived in a house across the street, in-
vited me one morning to go bird-hunting with him, I accepted
his offer.

He carried a long, evil-looking gun with two barrels, and
when we came to my hut on the top of the hill he taught me to
aim and fire it. At my first attempt I fell on my back from the
recoil of the gun, and my shoulder ached. But Chubb made me
try again and again, and at last he pointed to a sparrow on a
twig in a copse some distance away, and I fired, shutting my
eyes as I did so. Chubb ran into the bushes and returned with a
tiny, rigid bird in the hollow of his hand. I saw to my horror
that the little head lay open and spattered with blood. I felt
sick and was forced to turn aside and vomit. Chubb asked me
if I had eaten something that had made me ill, and I said I had
and that I had better go home and lie down. When I got home,
however, I felt better, and boasted, to my mother's bewilder-

A Connecticut Interlude / 223

ment, of having killed a bird. She had understood, she said,
that the birds were my friends, and she wondered why I
should want to kill my friends. I began to cry, and 1 promised
her (and myself) never again to harm a living creature. And I
kept my promise, though I could not resist accompanying
Chubb on his frequent hunting expeditions.

Chubb was about thirteen, a tall, gangling boy, loosely built.
He always looked as if he had slept with all his clothes on and
had only just got out of bed. Yet he was very strong. He
wielded an ax on a cord of firewood with great efficiency and,
if I happened to be present, with exaggerated flourishes. He
liked to wrestle and fight. Of course I was no match for him,
and I was always quickly thrown. When I was down, he
would dig his knees into my back and wrench my arms back-
ward until I cried for mercy. Sometimes on our walks in the
country he would suddenly stop in his tracks, square off, and
command me to defend myself. We both knew the command
to be insincere, but there was nothing for me to do but clench
my fists and make a show of guarding my head and chest be-
fore I fell, overwhelmed by the force of his powerful blows.
When I got to my feet again, he brushed my clothes with his
hands and erased all signs of our encounter, behaving like one
who bears no malice.

Yet it was Chubb who first made me aware of anti-Semitism
in Waterbury. Unlike New York, where I believed that most
Christians were bottled up in Cherry Street and on the water-
front, Waterbury was entirely Christian except for the hand-
ful of Jews residing in Jerusalem. Thus far our neighbors on
both sides of Burton Street had shown politeness and some-
times even cordiality toward me. Mrs. Calahan, Chubb' s
mother, often invited me in for a cookie and a cup of coffee
when I came over to play with her son or help him cut the
lawn. His older sister Jessie, a senior in high school, was a
large, pretty, blonde girl, with whom I fell in love at first
sight as she sat on her front porch and chewed gum lazily,

224 A LOST PARADISE

drawing the aromatic tape to and from her lips like an elastic
in ever longer and thinner stretchings. Jessie liked to tease me,
but she always took my part in the quarrels her brother and I
continually engaged in.

On our side of the street, where it began its decline toward
the intersecting Elizabeth Street, was a firehouse with two
beautifully equipped and shining vehicles a hook and ladder,
and an engine and hose. They stood side by side, with the
harnesses for the horses suspended by wires from the ceiling.
Mornings at seven and evenings at six a bell would ring for a
fire drill. Unless prevented by illness, I never missed these
exciting tests. At the sound of the bell the hitherto quiet place
suddenly came to life. Half-dressed firemen slid down a pole
from some upper region in rapid succession. Five big white
fire-horses came clattering from their stables and took their
places under their harnesses, which then descended on them
and were quickly fastened by the firemen charged with this
task. The drivers leaped into their lofty seats and seized the
reins, while all the other firemen, in their undershirts, but
helmeted and with axes in hand, sprang on the running-boards
of the engines. At that crucial moment the bell rang again.
The firemen jumped off the running-boards, the drivers in
front and the steersmen behind scrambled down; the trappings
of the horses were unbuckled, the harnesses ascended half-
way to the ceiling. The drill was over. But the demonstration,
witnessed by many children of the neighborhood and a sprin-
kling of grown-ups, was always breath-taking.

At other times I used to chat with the chief fireman, who
generally sat on a stool in front of the firehouse and beguiled
the time with a paper-bound book. People were cheerful and
pleasant with me. Our next-door neighbor to our right said
"Good morning" to me when we met in the early morning,
he carrying a lunch basket on his way to work, I returning
home from the fire drill. He had two little girls, aged about
three and five, and a beautiful wife who seemed to love flowers

A Connecticut Interlude / 225

more than any of her neighbors did. Every clear day at sun-
down she watered her geraniums and nasturtiums while she
kept an eye on her children playing on the lawn. The three
would wait for the father to come home from work. And when
they descried his tall, thin, bent form in the distance, they
would go to meet him halfway and then walk back together,
not speaking to each other, but looking contented. After sup-
per the man would come out alone, attach a hose to a spigot
at the front of his house, and water his lawn, painstakingly
slaking the thirst of every blade of grass. He would call out to
me to say what a nice evening it was, and ask if I continued to
like Waterbury, and wasn't Burton Street pretty?

Then Chubb disturbed the serenity of my first summer in
Waterbury. One morning when we were wrestling on his
lawn, while Jessie sat reading and chewing gum on the steps
of their porch, I gained the advantage over him for the first
time in all our battles. I had him flat on his back, and I exerted
all my strength to pin his shoulders to the ground and so win
the match. Jessie, seeing how close I appeared to be to victory,
spurred me on with words of encouragement and made me de-
termined to conquer, if only to gain favor with her. I had al-
ready firmly pinned his left shoulder down with my knee when
Chubb screamed: "No you don't, sheeny!" The appellation
had its intended effect. My grip relaxed, and the next mo-
ment Chubb had rolled over me and had me under him, both
my shoulders securely touching the ground. As I rose and
dusted myself off, his sister cried: "Shame on you, Chubb!"
and Chubb retorted: "Well, he is a sheeny!" And to me: "You
are, you know! You killed Christ, didn't you?" I denied the
charge vehemently. Chubb went on: "Well, if you didn't,
your father did. He's got a beard." I stood helplessly shaking
my head, and Jessie came over and put her arms around me.
"Stop that, you brute!" she screamed at her brother. But he
wouldn't be stopped. "Your grandfather your great-great-
great-great grandfather did it. He killed Christ. Yes he did.

226 A LOST PARADISE

And on Passover you drink Christian blood. Everybody knows
that!" I broke away from Jessie and ran up Maple Street, my
heart pounding with impotent rage. I made for my hide-out
on the hill. There I threw myself on the ground and wept bit-
ter tears.

I knew that it was forbidden to speak of Christ in an ortho-
dox Jewish house. In cheder he would be mentioned derisively
by the name of "Yoshke Pandre" (Yoshke was the diminutive
of Joseph, but the meaning of "Pandre" I could never dis-
cover), a renegade Jew who pretended to be God and de-
servedly crashed to the ground when in his foolish pride he
attempted to fly in the air like a bird. I was smarting under
Chubb' s wild accusation, however, and I decided to brave
my father's wrath and learn, once and for all, the truth of the
matter. After supper that evening I boldly asked him if it was
true that the Jews had killed the Christian God.

The question displeased him. He began shoving the crumbs
on the table in front of him away with the back of his hand,
an infallible sign of after-dinner petulance. After a long silence
he said: "A foolish question! How could anyone know? It is
even doubtful if there ever was such a person. In any case he's
had his revenge. Yes, yes he's had his revenge!"

Some time later, on a Saturday, he brought back with him
the rabbi of the synagogue for a schnapps and a morsel of
herring and bread. The rabbi was a thin old man with a long
white beard that completely hid his collar and tie. He stayed
awhile, and then from an open window in the front room I
watched him leave our house and walk slowly and feebly
away. He had not proceeded a hundred feet when two boys
who were walking on the other side of the street picked up a
handful of stones and began pelting the old man. I ran down-
stairs and out of the house, grabbed a handful of stones and
pebbles, and attacked the boys in turn. The old man, holding
his hands to his head, accelerated his walk, but did not other-
wise appear surprised. I fought them until the old man had

A Connecticut Interlude / 227

safely turned into North Main Street and was lost from view.
By then the battle was going against me. I turned back and
ran home zigzag fashion, to confuse the aim of my assailants.
Once in the house, I slammed the front door behind me and
turned the key. After shouting: "Come out of your house,
sheeny!" several times, the boys went on their way, leaving
me breathless and bewildered by the wanton cruelty I had
witnessed.

Now for the first time since we had come to America I felt
alien. I had thought that, with the exception of the hostile
edge of the New York ghetto, America was my home. I could
not mind being called a sheeny in Cherry Street, because
Cherry Street represented a small, self-contained, violently
antisocial perimeter that threatened me only when I invaded
it. But to be called a sheeny in Burton Street obliged me to re-
examine the image of America I had pieced together from the
security of the New York ghetto and from the absence of any
racial discrimination in the books of Horatio Alger. I had seen
two boys attempt to stone an old man, seemingly because he
had a beard. But I had met Christian men with beards who
walked the streets of Waterbury unmolested. It was not,
then, the beard of the rabbi that had offended his assailants,
but the Jew behind it. It was clear that in Burton Street, and
no doubt in every other street in Waterbury except those in
Jerusalem, Jews were not considered Americans. The boys I
had battled did not consider them Americans, nor did my
friend and neighbor Chubb.

On the other hand, Chubb' s mother and sisters did not
seem to mind that I was a Jew. They were invariably kind to
me. Our neighbor with the lovely wife and two little children
was civil. But who could tell what they really thought of me,
of all Jews? I looked back with longing to my former un-
clouded life on East Broadway and in Rutgers Place. There
Jews with beards walked not only with impunity, but with
pride in their ancestry and beliefs. Rabbis were respected,

228 A LOST PARADISE

even by the children of anarchists and atheists. Yet I could not
conceal from myself that but for the difference in the status of
Jews, Waterbury was a more desirable place to live in than the
ghetto, especially in summer. There had been nothing in the
ghetto so pleasant as the window-boxes and little flower
gardens on Burton Street, and the great horse-chestnut tree in
our front yard. When it rained softly in the evening, I sat on
the porch alone and heard the drops make their silent way
through the foliage. The tree stood breathless, absorbed in
filling up every pore and vein to meet the onslaught of the
morning's thirsty sun. Instead of fetid tenements, there were
individual houses set at a polite distance one from another.
Windows were curtained, and at night front parlors were lit
softly and deeply by gas lamps with shades of subdued colors
over them.

There were even more beautiful streets than Burton Street,
lovelier and wider, where the very rich lived in large, spread-
ing houses with flat tin roofs painted black or green. Some had
glass-enclosed porches and high towers. These mansions were
set in the midst of expansive lawns and gardens, and many of
them had drive-ins for carriages. On one leafy street stood St.
Margaret's School for girls, a beautiful, rambling, wooden
structure, more like a rich home than a school. There, I
learned, young ladies not only were educated, but were resi-
dent eight months of the year. It was aptly called a "board-
ing"-school. I marveled at the expense these young ladies
were to their parents, and I also wondered at the young ladies'
willingness to leave their homes and families (they came from
many states), for they must surely be homesick. I should be
homesick away from home.

From Chubb I learned that America was full of boarding-
schools for boys, and that he himself would prefer a military
academy to the educational schools that prepared the wealthy
youth of the land for college. On hearing this, my mind went

A Connecticut Interlude / 229

back to the gang wars on the East Side, and I recalled the
pleasures of battle and the adulation of my fellow warriors.
Perhaps Chubb was right! A military academy was the proper
school for a courageous American boy. I was curious about
what such military preparation might lead to, and Chubb said
to a military career, and went on to tell me about West Point,
which produced both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant
and other great generals and presidents. Chubb said that it was
easy to get detailed information about the country's military
boarding-schools. All one had to do was to send a postcard, and
a booklet would arrive by return mail. He showed me a page
he had cut out of some magazine listing military academies.
I read fascinating names and places, and then and there I de-
cided on a military career. I dispatched penny postcards to
four institutions whose advertisements caught my imagina-
tion, and in a week there arrived, addressed to me, four book-
lets, profusely illustrated and completely informative. I had
not written to West Point. I had heard with a sinking of the
heart of the difficulties attendant on an appointment there. In
any case, West Point lay far ahead in the future. It had, per-
force, to wait on my graduation from a preparatory military
school.

I devoured the contents of these booklets in my hide-out. In
a few days I knew practically by heart the terrain, the build-
ings, the requirements for entrance, the fees, the courses of
study, the privileges, the prohibitions, the number and dates of
the holidays, and even the signed endorsements of famous
military figures in the United States Army. But I found each
of the academies so glamorous in its own special way that I
began to despair of ever making a definite choice.

One school situated close to the field of Gettysburg in
Pennsylvania appeared irresistible for its historical associa-
tion. The booklet asked parents to evaluate the effect of such
proximity to the field that became the turning-point in the
Civil War and was the scene of President Lincoln's famous ad-

230 A LOST PARADISE

dress. As a Northerner I felt I was obligated to choose the
Gettysburg Academy. I found myself attracted also, however,
to the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. This school,
its prospectus pointed out, was situated quite close to a famous
academy over which General Robert E. Lee had presided until
his death. Virginia sounded deeply romantic. Virginia had
been, I hastened to inform myself, the head and front of a Lost
Cause. This in itself drew me to it, even though the cause that
was lost had for its misguided objective the perpetuation of
Negro slavery. I weighed the two alternatives: on the one
hand, years of residence in a Northern academy in the in-
spiring atmosphere of the Great Emancipator; on the other,
the prospect of pupilage in the romantic terrain of the de-
feated yet lovable champion of slavery, Robert E. Lee.

I was particularly taken with the Virginia school's in-
sistence on discipline, perhaps for the perverse reason that I
was prone to resist any form of coercion. Then, too, I was
attracted by the enumeration of a long list of prohibitions,
defiance of which could bring about the instant dismissal of
the student. Among these one stood out for its noble, though
vague, implications. /'Conduct unbecoming a gentleman," the
prospectus stated, "will not be tolerated." ''Conduct unbe-
coming a gentleman" invoked in a single phrase all the things
that the heroes in Horatio Alger and the Liberty Boys of "76
scrupulously avoided. It was, of course, unthinkable that I
should ever be found guilty of it. The future seemed clear
enough. Upon graduation from the Staunton Military Acad-
emy, I would apply for an appointment at West Point. I in-
quired the name of the Congressman from Water bury with a
view of making a direct application to him at once, and to sug-
gest that he stand by for the time, about six years hence, when
I should be ready for admission to the national military school.

If I entertained the thought that a military career would
lead to the Presidency, as it had in several instances in Ameri-
can history, it was not for long. Chubb told me, with ill-

A Connecticut Interlude z 2 3 1

concealed satisfaction, that no foreign-born male was eligible
for that supreme office. There appeared to be nothing in our
Constitution, however, to prevent the rise of a foreign-born
American to the highest rung of the military ladder. I would,
perforce, content myself with a lieutenant-generalship. The
pay, I learned, would be ample, with a suitable residence,
an orderly, a saddle-horse found, besides the privilege of
purchasing victuals at the army stores at cost. Half of my pay
I would give my wife for the upkeep of the household, and the
other half I would distribute among my mother and my sisters,
Hannah and Molly. Hannah, as the neediest, would receive a
larger share than either my mother or Molly.

Hannah never complained, but Molly's letters from New
York hinted at an unusual slump in the fresco-painting busi-
ness. Week after week Molly voluntarily filled up the hole in
the household economy. Hannah accepted this additional aid
with the utmost reluctance, and her husband breezily promised
to return the money as soon as the art of interior decorating
took a turn for the better, a direction that to him appeared
imminent. Though I respected my brother-in-law's art, I
longed to free rny sister Hannah from its business vagaries.

The brochures from the military academies did more than
satisfy my curiosity about the practical aspects of military
training. As they were In the form of booklets, sometimes
bound in cardboard, they were, in a sense, books, and there-
fore, also In a sense, literature. I had appropriated a small un-
used storeroom in the attic. This I had fitted up as a den sacred
to myself and not to be entered by my mother, my little sister,
or even Molly when she came to visit us. I had nailed an old
egg crate to one wall, which I pretended was a beautiful book-
case. My library was as yet negligible, consisting of half a
dozen paper-bound Horatio Algers and a pile of 'Liberty Boys
of '76 which I had brought with me from New York. The
Liberty Boys I stood up erect in the crate as if they were real
books, and to these I now added the prospectuses of the mili-

232 A LOST PARADISE

tary academies. But there still remained a whole shelf to fill
up. At this point Chubb, who, while not a reader of books
himself, took a friendly interest in filling my bookcase, sug-
gested that a postcard to the U. S. Department of Agriculture
would result in my being placed on that Department's mailing
list. At Chubb* s dictation I dispatched the following card to
the Secretary of Agriculture in Washington:

Dear Sir:

Please send me all your books on Agriculture. I am
a farmer.

Yours truly,

S. Chotzinoff

79 Burton St., Waterbury, Conn.

To my delight the postman one morning delivered a weighty
bundle addressed specifically to me. Inside I found a number of
pamphlets on many aspects of farming, and a large, beautifully
bound volume entitled, if I remember, The Apple in America.
The book was more than three hundred pages long, the paper
heavy and shiny, and the print large. But what pleased me most
were the twenty-five plates illustrating the Apple in America
in actual colors. Some plates featured a single apple, others an
apple sliced in two, with the black pits showing. So realistic
were the apples in color, rotundity, and texture that my
mother swore she could have mistaken the pictures for the
real fruit. Some time later, and quite unsolicited, the Secretary
of Agriculture sent me two companion volumes : The Pear in
America and The Peach of the same territory. I desecrated the
books by cutting out three plates an apple, a pear, and a
peach. These I fiamed in pieces of wood I picked up in a new
tenement my brothers were building, and hung up on the wall
opposite the bookcase. I now could boast of both an art col-
lection and a library.

My great objective was eventually to eliminate all paper-
covered volumes and replace them with "real" books bound

A Connecticut Interlude / 233

in cardboard, cloth, or leather. My taste, too, was again under-
going a change. Rarely now did I take down an old Horatio
Alger to reread the history of the average, indigent American
boy. The Liberty Boys of '76 languished, erect, on my book-
shelves. My reading for a while was factual, and I was ab-
sorbed in the publications of the Department of Agriculture.
At my fingertips I had complete information about every
variety of fruit grown in the United States. At night I was kept
awake by reviewing, mentally, the contents of the pro-
spectuses of the country's military schools. At the same time
I was conscious of a hiatus in my life, formerly occupied by
books of the spirit.

When school began in September, this lack was partly
modified, for I was placed in the sixth grade, and our readers
contained much poetry and some short stories appropriate to
our powers of comprehension. I was particularly impressed
with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I committed to
memory. I marveled at its economy of language. It seemed an
easy poem to have written. Yet if/ had written it, it would
have had to be twice as long. I recalled Tennyson's Enoch
Arden, over which I had wept in Mr. Strassmeir's class, and
I compared it with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, to the
disadvantage of the former.

It was a new world of poetry that Coleridge opened up.
There seemed to be a pictorial, emotional, or spiritual reason
for each word in the poem. To my delight, the poet eschewed
precise information. Where Tennyson had told us in detail
about Philip and Annie and Enoch, their background, their
bringing up, and their relation to each other, Coleridge struck
out simple images, leaving me to fill in or speculate upon the
details as I chose. I was overwhelmed by the boldness of the
opening lines: "It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one
of three." / should have said: "He is an ancient Mariner,"
not "#." But how much better "It" was! And how imagina-
tive the lack of ordinary identification in "one of three"! And

234 A LOST PARADISE

a moment later, when the identification comes, it is as vague
as the previous "one of three," yet more impressive for its
vagueness than if we had been told his name and history.

And who was the Ancient Mariner? I never knew, except
that he was "one" who survived an eerie, soul-searing voyage
in strange seas, and returned with loving-kindness in his heart
for his fellow men, "both man and bird and beast ... all
things both great and small." And to my astonishment my
eyes filled with tears at the mention of "him who died on
cross." I hardly dared to dwell on the lonely image so star-
tlingly placed before me. Could a Jew permit himself to weep
over "him who died on cross"? Because of him, Jews in count-
less numbers had suffered and died. I myself had seen them
suffer, and I had suffered to see them reviled and stoned. Yet
the crucified image hovered before me and brought on tears.
Perhaps I ought to find out more about "him"! "He" could
not know what crimes had been committed in his name! If he
could know, he must disapprove, else why should my eyes
fill with tears when I thought of him? I must find out about
him, secretly, of course, why "he died on cross." I could not
ask Chubb, who was always hinting that I was, by associa-
tion, responsible for his death. But I could read "their" Bible
and find out.

On South Main Street, close to the railroad station, stood
the public library, a lovely, dark-red, ivy-covered brick build-
ing. I passed by it often and wondered who that Howard
Bronson was who had given his name to it, as a large plaque
near the entrance door testified. I walked in boldly one day
and discovered to my surprise a different situation from that
which I had known in the Aguilar Free Library in the Edu-
cational Alliance on East Broadway. I found myself in an
enormous room lined with books, and on the floor several
long tables and chairs. Through another door I saw another
room with countless rows of heavily-laden bookcases. Boys
and girls, men and women browsed among the shelves as freely

A Connecticut Interlude / 235

as if they were in their own homes. They selected a book, or
several books, and walked over to a desk near the door, where
a kind-looking gray-haired lady stamped their cards and con-
versed amiably with each borrower. I waited until the gray-
haired lady was alone; then I politely inquired if I might look
at a Christian Bible. She gave me a pleasant smile and said of
course I might. She went to a bookshelf, found the Bible, and
invited me to sit down at one of the oblong tables and read it.
But when I opened the book to the first page, I was startled
to find in English the very words I had studied in cheder: "In
the beginning God created ..."

I took the book back to the lady at the desk and said that I
thought she had misunderstood me, that she had given me
"our" Bible, not " theirs." She looked at me oddly and then
leafed the pages to a place toward the back which read "The
New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and
said that what I was looking for began there. I took the book
to the table and began to read. I felt afraid. I looked around to
see if I was being observed. What would my father say if he
was told I had been reading the forbidden book, the forbidden
name with the bold claim of "our Lord and Saviour"? No one
was looking at me. I could read on and no one would know. I
must find out about him, who he was, where he came from,
whom he had saved.

As I read I could hardly believe my eyes. He was "the son
of David," it said, "the son of Abraham" (but, I realized,
only in the sense of being a descendant) . For "Abraham begat
Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob." I counted forty-two genera-
tions between David and him. With such an important He-
brew lineage, why did Jews proscribe him? His life had been
exemplary, his death noble and pitiful. Many things baffled
me as I read the Gospel according to St. Matthew. What was
the Holy Ghost? Why should his death save "us"? Why did
God permit his crucifixion? But I forgot such perplexities in
the "personal" beauty of the tragedy, in the vivid details, in

236 A LOST PARADISE

the unflickering radiance of the central figure. I closed the
book in a ferment of conflicting emotions. I thought of my
grandfather, and I felt sure that he would have understood
Jesus Christ. For his heart, too, went out to pitiful people and
he had never thought of himself at all. I would not be afraid
to tell my grandfather about him. Perhaps even my mother
would understand! But I would have to think twice about con-
fiding in her; for all her goodness, there was no denying that
she was an uneducated person. I felt that only an educated per-
son like myself could rise above prejudice and custom to un-
derstand him. It was true that she condoned my breaking the
Sabbath with my playing the piano. But could she consider
dispassionately a point of view that my father would regard
as sheer apostasy? It was hard to tell. I must wait for a favor-
able moment to test her. In the meantime I must learn more
about Christ and Christianity.

With this in mind, I went back to the Howard . Bronson
Library to read more in the Christian Bible. But what I found
was only a retelling of the story I had read, with some unim-
portant differences. After finishing the Gospel according to
St. Mark, I decided that the reports of the remaining two
disciples would not enlighten me further. Outside, on the
curb, I saw a pushcart overflowing with books. A sign on a
stick advised that the books had been discarded by the library
because of age, and the price was two cents a volume. I picked
up one at random and opened it at the title page. Oliver Twist^
it said, the History of a Foundling, by Charles Dickens, Es-
quire. On the opposite page was a drawing. It showed a lit-
tle boy sitting in a comfortable chair in a pleasant room,
absorbed in a picture book spread out on his knee. A window
looked out on a garden. I caught sight of a man peering at the
boy from outside this window. He was an evil-looking man
with a thin, swarthy face, a long, sharp nose, and gimlet eyes.
He wore a large felt hat and an old-fashioned cape. He had
evidently come a long way. His presence, I felt, boded no

A Connecticut Interlude / 237

good for the little boy. Underneath the picture it said "Oliver
Is visited by the Jew." The evil-looking man was the Jew.
Therefore the boy, Oliver, must be a Christian. I was aware of
the racial juxtaposition of the two. Apparently the hero of a
story, being kind and good and brave as in the books of
Horatio Alger, or merely young and innocent, as in Oliver
Twist, could not possibly be a Jew. Only a villain could
properly be one. Yet I knew Jews were good that is, with a
few exceptions. I had never met an evil Jew, one who looked
as crafty and sinister as the man in the picture.

I felt that in making this character a Jew, Charles Dickens,
Esquire, the author, was being unfair and unjust. There could
be no possible resemblance between this terrible man and me,
though we were of the same race. Still, in spite of the author's
bias against Jews, I was taken with the mystery of the re-
lationship between the man and the boy in the illustration, and
I longed to read the book without delay. Fortunately, I had
two cents in my pocket. And, the purchase made, I began
walking slowly home, reading as I went. It was my first
encounter with realism in literature, and I found it both re-
pellent and absorbing. Here was poverty in a guise that I knew
only too well, though the settings and the characters were un-
familiar. Years later when I read in Cranford that one of the
characters became so absorbed in reading an installment of a
Dickens novel as he walked in the streets that he was run over
by a horse and killed, I thought of my walk from the library
to Burton Street with my eyes glued to the pages of Oliver
Twist, and I marveled that I had not been run over at some
street-crossing. Once in my house, I closeted myself in my
attic room and read Oliver Twist until my mother called to
me to come to supper.

As I read, I forgot my unhappiness about the author's un-
fairness to Jews and gave myself up wholly to the story and its
gallery of strange and fascinating people. I was relieved to
find Christian villains along with the Jew, Fagin. Bill Sikes

238 A LOST PARADISE

was evil and cruel, though less subtle than Fagin, and Monks
was even more forbidding and certainly as crafty. I was de-
lighted with the humor of some of the characters. I had never
before encountered such humor in books. I laughed till I cried
at the antics of the Artful Dodger and his haughty bearing be-
fore the police officer: "Were you re-dressing yourself to me,
my man?" The author seemed to know people most inti-
mately. He also knew how to relieve the reader's tension just
when it was at the breaking-point. When my eyes swam with
tears and my heart ached unbearably at a crisis in Oliver's
misfortunes, the next chapter would set me laughing at the
pomposity of Mr. Bumble or the drolleries of the Artful
Dodger. When, happy and satisfied with the outcome of the
tale, I closed the book and looked up at the paper-covered
Algers on my bookshelves, I realized that Charles Dickens
knew life and people in a more comprehensive way than did
the author of The Erie Train Boy. I saw that both writers had a
passion for justice, but that there was an undefinable warmth
in Dickens that was missing in Alger. I realized that Oliver
had not the drive and ambition of the Erie Train Boy. And I
wondered if perhaps this very lack made Oliver more attrac-
tive, more heart-warming, more living, more real!

The more I compared the two authors, the more startling
became their differences to me. Dickens knew, and through
him I knew, too, the importance of language. Hitherto I had
not been conscious of it. Horatio Alger, I was forced to con-
cede, was not. I was eager to read more of Dickens, and also
more of poets like Coleridge, who also used language in a
special way.

Yet if I should decide to become a writer, I thought, I
would favor poetry over prose. I realized it was the more
difficult medium of expression. For one thing, one had always
to be on a lofty plane of thought and feeling in poetry. I
should like to be aways on a lofty plane. Poetry permitted no
relaxation of thought, and the necessity of rhyming interfered

A Connecticut Interlude / 239

with one's natural flow of words. Another obstacle in writing
poetry was the need of a knowledge of horticulture. Almost
all poems spoke familiarly of flowers. But I knew very little
about them. Yet, in spite of these difficulties, I would be a
poet.

One afternoon during a study period in school, I wrote my
first poem. I called it "Evening." It had six stanzas of four
lines each. Several times I was forced by the exigencies of
rhyming to change a thought or an image, but I finally suc-
ceeded in recalling and conveying the emotions I felt as I sat
on my stoop underneath the horse-chestnut tree in the quiet of
a starry night. I was enchanted with the poem, and tears came
to my eyes at the beauty and felicity of some of my lines.
"The flowerets," I had written, "sadly droop their heads." I
was pleased with having chosen "flowerets" instead of
"flowers," which would have been prose. The final couplet,
besides being unusually lofty in sentiment, had a rather
dexterous rhyme: "And yet to them [the flowerets] a Hope
was given, a Hope as if sent down from heaven." Miss Quinn,
my teacher, seeing me occupied in writing instead of studying,
came up behind me and read the poem over my shoulder.
Miss Quinn was redheaded and uncongenial. She asked me if I
had copied the poem out of a book. When I said that it was
my own, she gave me an incredulous look and walked away.
Later, when school was out, I showed the poem to some of my
classmates and was most gratified by their praise. At home I
read it to my mother. Knowing only a few English words, she
could not, of course, understand it. But she was touched by the
tremor in my voice as I read, and the tears came to her eyes as
they did to mine. She said it "sounded" good, especially the
end words. She thought I should make copies and send them to
Hannah and Molly in New York.

One day, accompanying my mother to the Woolworth's
Five and Ten Cent Store, I walked idly among the counters

240 A LOST PARADISE

while she rummaged around for needles and for thread of
certain colors she wanted. Near the entrance on East Main
Street was a wall lined with shelves on which stood rows of
books, all bound in light pink boards. They were priced at ten
cents a volume. My heart leaped at the sight of so many
books, so uniform in color and size. I reached up for one and
opened it. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, I read
on the cover. It was the most provocative title I had thus far
encountered, and I hastily turned to chapter one to see if I
could find enlightenment there. Nothing could have excited me
more than what I read in the very first paragraph: "Squire
Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen
having asked me to write down the whole particulars about
Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping
nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only
because there Is still treasure not yet lifted [italics mine] , I take
up my pen in the year of Grace 17, and go back to the time
when my father kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and the brown
old seaman, with the sabre cut [italics mine], first took up his
lodging under our roof' 7

At this point my mother, having completed her purchase,
saw me and came toward me. I replaced the book and we left
the store. I could hardly wait for her to enter our house before
I ran back at full speed to East Main Street and Woolworth's,
but when I looked for Treasure Island, it was not on the
shelves. Someone must have bought it during the half-hour it
took me to go home and return. I was utterly disconsolate,
and was deciding to run over to the Bronson Library to see if
there was a copy there, when the title of another book at-
tracted my attention. Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson,
the author of the missing Treasure Island. Perhaps Kidnapped
was a sequel, and I could learn what became of the brown old
seaman with the sabre cut! It wasn't. It was quite another
story, but in its way as exciting as Treasure Island. And while
I was deep in the opening chapter of Kidnapped, a store official

A Connecticut Interlude z 241

came along trundling a little wagon full of the pink volumes.
He filled the gaps in the bookshelves and left. To my delight,
he had replaced Treasure Island. Then and there I knew that
the two books must be my very own or I would never be
happy again.

I could perhaps borrow them from the Bronson Library,
though as yet I had not filled out a library card. But it was not
alone an eagerness to know the outcome of both stories that
possessed me. Indeed, I did not wish to know the outcome too
quickly. If I owned the books I would limit myself to reading
one chapter a day, the better to savor and prolong the great
adventures and the probably startling denouement implied
in the succinct titles. My passion at the moment was to own
the books, and without delay. To buy them, if I could some-
how borrow the money, would mean delay, and I dared not
take the chance of the books being sold out completely beyond
replacement by the storeman with the little wagon. I would
steal the books. I saw no alternative. And someday when I had
twenty cents I would pay the store and explain the nature of
the delayed transaction. They would understand that I was
not an ordinary thief, else I would have stolen chocolate-
covered walnuts, which I never tired of eating. But I must
take the utmost care not to be caught, for I should then not
only lose the books, but render my family miserable and
myself liable to imprisonment in jail or the reform school near
Watertown which Chubb had pointed out to me on one of our
walks. My desire to own the books outweighed all con-
siderations of possible exposure and punishment, I set about
planning the theft for the following day, which would be
Saturday. There being no school, I should have at my disposal
unlimited time. I would need to wear my overcoat, though
the days were warm, for I could slip the books between it and
my jacket. I would then saunter out with an air of innocence,
my right arm pressed to my side to hold the concealed books in
place until I should be safely out of the store.

242 A LOST PARADISE

I had no appetite at supper that night and ate very little.
My mother felt my head, thought it warm, and put me to bed
early. But 1 could not sleep even after everyone else had
retired and the house was dark. And once I felt sick and had to
rush to the toilet to vomit. But I was careful to make as little
noise as possible, so as not to wake my mother. I lay with
eyes open in the dark, and I saw myself in Woolworth's store
at the bookshelves, waiting for the moment when I would be
the only one there. Suddenly I imagined I stood at the gate of
the reform school near W^atertown, a policeman at either side
of me. Then the scene changed to my attic room, and there on
the shelf on the wall stood my two coveted pink volumes erect
between Oliver Twist and The Apple in America.

Notwithstanding the agonies and hallucinations of that
interminable night, my determination to carry out my plan
never faltered. And soon after the opening of the store in the
morning, I was on East Main Street, looking casually into
shop windows and passing the great doors of Woolworth's
with no apparent interest in the shop. I walked to the end of
the street, crossed to the other side, and from a sheltered
doorway watched customers go in and out of the five-and-
ten-cent store. I was waiting for a lull, and about noon it came.
I left my position and began to walk, and to allay the suspi-
cions of anyone who might have seen me in the doorway and
wondered at my loitering there, I made several detours and
came into East Main by way of North Main.

When I entered the store, there was no one at the book-
shelves. I made my way to the hardware department at the
extreme end of the store, looking around for an article I pre-
tended I could not find, and walked determinedly toward the
entrance. There I paused as if I had accidentally caught sight
of the pink books on the shelves. Leisurely I took down
Treasure Island and glanced through it. From the corner of my
eye I saw that I was unobserved. I closed the book and slipped
it inside my overcoat. No one had noticed me. I took down
Kidnapped, perused it for a while and slipped it, exactly as I

A Connecticut Interlude / 243

had planned, under my coat, not over Treasure Island, but on a
level with it, so that my chest should not bulge suspiciously. I
pressed my left arm against my body just below Treasure
Island, and with my right hand held together the two ends of
my stand-up overcoat collar. I felt certain the books could
not be seen from above or slip out below. I then walked
slowly and calmly out of the store, looking neither to right
nor to left.

Outside, I paused a moment to look at some of the wares
in the window, then proceeded slowly toward North Main
Street. When I turned the corner, I broke into a desperate
run. As I ran, a passage from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
came suddenly to mind, spelling out my agonized plight:

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

I did not stop until I gained my attic room. There I hid the
books in an old suitcase, which I then concealed in a closet.
That done, I ran downstairs and took up a position on the front
stoop, where I could survey the entire street.

I sat quiet and frightened, and pretended not to notice
passers-by. I dreaded the possible sudden appearance of a
policeman, but I also knew about "plain-clothes" men. Any
ordinary-looking passer-by might well be one of them. Once a
man who walked past our house rapidly stopped suddenly,
turned, and came back. To my horror, he opened our wicket
gate and advanced on me. I sat paralyzed with fear and waited
helplessly for the blow to fall. But when he spoke he asked
the way to the Brass and Foundry Company. In gratitude for
this reprieve, I vowed never again to play the piano on
Saturdays and holy days and not to take so much as a drop of
water on Yom Kippur.

244 A LOST PARADISE

At noon my father returned from schul, and my mother
called out to me to come to dinner. But though cholent (a
potato stew) was my favorite dish, I dared not leave my
post on the stoop, and I pleaded a headache and want of
appetite. Toward evening I felt less apprehensive. On Satur-
days the stores closed at nine. I gave myself an hour's leeway
before I could feel it reasonably safe to retire. Yet lying in the
dark, I fell a prey to the hallucinations of the night before.
And in the morning I felt really unwell and was unable to get
out of bed. My mother was much agitated and considered
calling the doctor. But my father said that I must have eaten
chazerei (unkosher food) and ordered castor oil. I languished,
queasy and uncomfortable, for two days, and one night I grew
delirious and my mother said I spoke wildly about policemen
and prison. But I soon was quite well, and when I went out of
doors again, I felt free of all fears and did not even bother to
scrutinize passers-by. Before another week had passed I felt
secure enough to look into the Woolworth store window,
though I could not summon enough courage to enter.

That same night I took the pink books out of the suitcase
and placed them on my shelves. As I had expected, they looked
beautiful standing erect, flanked by a fat volume on either side.
Unfortunately, I could not boast of my new acquisitions, nor
show them to anyone, at least for a long time. Each morning
before going off to school I paid them a visit to assure myself
that they were still there. During school hours I daydreamed
about them and was often Inattentive to what Miss Quinn was
telling the class. At home on late afternoons I read a little in
each book, but not too much, for I had determined to keep a
tight curb on my curiosity and to dole myself out only two or
three pages a day. It was months before I finished the books.
By then the world of Jim Hawkins and David Balfour had
become so actual for me that I could not long bear to be out-
side it; and a few days later I took the pink books down from
their shelf and began to read again from the beginning.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Connecticut Interlude 2

T

JL.HE

-HE Webster Grammar School was a pleasanter
place than No. 2 on Henry Street. It stood on a hill on the
edge of town, and around it were big trees, a variety of
shrubs, and large lawns to play on. Recess time came between
eleven and eleven fifteen in the morning, when the whole
school was let out at the same time. We played games, and
some of the older boys paired off with the girls. There had
been no girls in No. 2, and no one had missed them. But now,
unaccountably, it was agreeable to have them in one's class,
to talk to them during recess, and sometimes to walk home
with one of them after school.

Yet, for all its pleasant surroundings, the Webster School
was not exciting. For one thing, there were no teachers with
the colorful personalities of Mr. Strassmeir and Mr. Silver.
Unlike No. 2, where promotions took place every half year,

246 A LOST PARADISE

grades in Webster School were on a yearly basis. In my
three years at Webster I had only three teachers. I remember
Miss Quinn better than the other two because she was my
last teacher there and because of her red hair and her aloof-
ness from the three or four Jewish pupils in her class. It is
true that she called her pupils by their first names, a practice
that should have pleased me. At No. 2 I had been Chotzinoff,
young as I was. This cold appellation had been an insurmount-
able bar to the intimacy I longed to establish with Mr.
Strassmeir and Mr. Silver. Miss Quinn called me Samuel, yet
she managed to make my first name sound as impersonal as
Chotzinoff. It was Dorothy Wiener, a Jewish girl who sat in
front of me, who first called my attention to Miss Quinn's
frigidity to her Jewish pupils. On the day before Rosh
Hashonah, Miss Quinn told the class that those who preferred
to stay at home on Jewish holidays could do so and would not
be marked absent. At recess Dorothy spoke bitterly to me
about Miss Quinn's choice of the word "preferred," and I had
to agree that the word was unfortunate in that it put our
observance of an important holy day on an elective basis.
Miss Quinn never told the class that those who "preferred"
to observe Easter or Christmas would suffer no punishment.
Dorothy also asked me to note how often the Jewish pupils
were made to stay after school, while others who might have
been just as guilty of an infraction of the rules got off scot-
free; this was also true. Yet I could have forgiven Miss
Quinn's hostility if she had shown a passion for art and
socialism like Mr. Strassmeir, or for individuality and con-
servative patriotism like Mr. Silver.

Miss Quinn was animated by passion, but I could not
determine its nature. She moved about the classroom in a
state of secret, pent-up agitation that never came to a head.
She had authority, and taught us with efficiency in what
seemed to me even then a correct and standardized way. But
she brought no illumination to bear on the subject that inter-

A Connecticut Interlude 2 247

ested me most, literature. Where Mr. Strassmeir would have
directed his imagination like a searchlight to a poem or a story
and would have exposed under-surface beauties and called
attention to subtle expedients of poets and writers in their
pursuit of "effect," Miss Quinn was content to follow the
story-line relentlessly, as if the "story" alone was the aim and
end of art.

I could not love Miss Quinn, perhaps because I felt that she
could not love me. But her unfaltering command of her powers
as an administrator impressed me greatly and forced me to
admire her. She seemed never in doubt as to what to do. She
never hesitated in meting out her cold censure or praise.
There was even something magnificent in the assurance with
which she disregarded the decisive elements of poetry and
imaginative prose. Nothing ever caught her unawares. Her
decisions followed automatically on events, sometimes terri-
fyingly so. When Howard Haskins, one of the boys, failed
to appear in class two days running, she dispatched two fel-
low pupils to his house to find out the cause. And when they
reported that Howard was ill of diphtheria, she sent the boys
instantly back to their own homes to be quarantined for their
own protection and that of the class. And when news came a
week later that Howard had died, Miss Quinn commanded
the class to bow its head in silence for a minute out of respect
to the "departed." When we had done that, she said that the
class must send flowers and that she expected each of us to
bring five cents in the morning to pay for them. In the mean-
time she would herself lay out the money for the flowers,
which, she said, should be roses with long stems, and she
would inscribe a card saying: "To Howard, from his sorrow-
ful friends of the Eighth Grade."

Miss Quinn's quick and realistic response to so disturbing
an event cushioned the shock of it, at least for me. At the same
time I was lost in wonder at her seeming insensibility to
death. "And 72011?," Miss Quinn said a moment later, "we

248 A LOST PARADISE

must get on with our work. I am sure Howard would want us
to." How could she, how could anyone be sure what Howard
would want? After school we argued about that in the yard
and on our way home. Some of the boys thought Miss Quinn
should have dismissed us for the day. That, and not a minute
of silence with heads bowed, would have been a "real" mark
of respect for the dead. Others shouted and played tag and
teased one another, quite as if nothing unusual had taken
place. Only the girls huddled together and spoke self-
consciously in whispers and looked at the ground a great deal.

At home I created, as I had hoped, a sensation with the
news of Howard's death. My mother grew pale, and her
hands trembled as she helped me off with my jacket. Even my
father was impressed, for he stopped reading his Talmud and
said: "Takke?" in a doubting tone of voice, as if he wished I
would deny what I had just said. I pretended a greater sadness
than I felt, perhaps because I had not known Howard inti-
mately. But the thought of death could always bring tears to
my eyes. And the possibility, now so sensationally proved,
that a boy of my age could die and be ruthlessly severed from
his friends and his family forever was hardly to be borne.

Miss Quinn had arranged for the class to attend Howard's
funeral in a body. The class was to have a spokesman who
would express our sense of sorrow to Howard's mother. It was
well known that I excelled in elocution, and Miss Quinn,
properly putting aside her prejudice against me in the interest
of the class, selected me as spokesman without a moment's
hesitation. She then gave me a little speech she had written,
which I was to memorize and make to Mrs, Haskins later
that afternoon.

At four o'clock Miss Quinn marched us in a body to Mrs.
Haskins's house. I walked at the head of the procession,
trying to approximate the solemnity of the occasion by
stooping a little and keeping my eyes on the ground. Indeed,
notwithstanding my feeling of importance, I had been unable

A Connecticut Interlude 2 249

to shake off the oppressive reality of juvenile extinction, and
the prospect of coming face to face with it in the house we
were approaching filled me with dread. I was afraid of seeing
the anguish on the faces of the dead boy's friends and relations
and of hearing their lamentations. The East Side funerals I
had witnessed had left with me painful memories, which
sometimes induced a feeling of hopelessness that it might
take hours or some new and exciting diversion to dissipate.

Outside the Haskinses' house several closed carriages and a
hearse stood at the curb. I had always avoided looking
squarely at a hearse, and I quickly averted my eyes from the
significant vehicle. Strangely enough, no sounds came from the
house no screams, no loud words of stern comfort from
outsiders, no wailings from the bereaved. Even before Miss
Quinn could grasp the knob, the door was gently opened from
the inside by an unseen hand. Miss Quinn had briefed us on
what we were to do, and the class now followed her into the
parlor.

I was bewildered by what I saw there. A neatness, a silent
decorum, as of a genteel, muted party in progress, prevailed.
In the center the coffin stood on a raised platform draped in
black. Close to the walls many people sat silently on little
gilded chairs. And in the doorway stood Mr. and Mrs.
Haskins, both dressed in black, waiting to receive us. They
were not weeping. Mr. Haskins said: "Come in come in,"
encouragingly. Mrs. Haskins looked a little tired, but showed
no outward signs of grief. She smiled at me rather kindly when
I made my speech, thanked me in a sweet voice, and said we
must have a last look at Howard, We filed around the coffin,
and each of us stood a moment gazing into it. I was determined
not to look, and I stood my moment with head bent and eyes
closed. We then filed out as we had entered. Mr. and Mrs.
Haskins were greeting an incoming line of visitors, and we
had to pass through the door sideways to give them room.

This, then, was a Christian funeral, the first I had ever

250 A LOST PARADISE

seen. I had been brought up to believe that Christians had no
feelings. On the face of it, what I had witnessed was sufficient
to confirm my belief. Yet I couldn't be sure. Until that day I
had never doubted that Mrs. Haskins loved her son. Once I
had walked home with Howard, and his mother saw me from
a window and invited me in. Howard was a frail, skinny boy,
and his mother appeared much concerned about him. She
made him drink a large glass of milk and eat a big slice of
bread and butter against his wish. (In winter he would come to
school bundled up to his ears, and we could see that he felt
unhappy at being so carefully and warmly wrapped.) In her
concern for her son Mrs. Haskins resembled my mother, who
tried, but without success, to have me wear too many clothes
in winter. And now Howard lay dead in the parlor, and his
mother behaved strangely, just as if she didn't care. How
different my mother would be in such a situation! She would
shriek dreadfully and tear her garments and throw herself on
the coffin and resist being dislodged. Indeed, I did not see how
she could go on living without me. Sooner or later she would
disappear, and be discovered one day lying dead on my grave.

Yet it was impossible that Howard's mother should not love
him. Could she have been dissembling in the parlor? Christians
were curious people. They made no outcries. But sometimes
even they must cry. Perhaps when she returned alone with
Mr. Haskins from the cemetery Mrs. Haskins would cry.
Perhaps they were like us, but only when they were alone.
If so, I pitied Mrs. Haskins. For Howard was an only child,
and she must have wanted to cry dreadfully. I knew then that
under affliction it is easier to be a Jew than a Christian.

For a while Howard's death robbed me of my feeling of
unquestioned security about my own immortality. I had quite
forgotten the playmate I had lost long ago in Russia, but now
he came to mind, and I saw that death took no account of
race or even intellectual superiority, and might not even spare
a Jewish boy so sensitive and intelligent as I. What was the

A Connecticut Interlude 2 251

good, then, of all my daydreams, my appreciation of the
lovely universe with its music and books, my awareness of my
own tenderness and the tenderness of those I loved, if at any
moment I could be made insensible to them forever!

And, as if further to impress me with his undiscriminating
power and to batter down the doors of my own fancied
immunity, Death continued to strike flagrantly all about me.
Diphtheria was everywhere in the city. Everywhere on
houses one read the warning sign: "Under Quarantine."
Cases appeared on Burton Street. Late one afternoon I saw
the lady in the next house who loved flowers come out to
water them. But she was alone, and when her husband ap-
peared with his lunch box at the end of the street, she did not
go to meet him, but waited for him to come to her. Together
they silently entered the house. The next morning I saw the
dreaded sign on their front door. I watched the doctor come
and go, sometimes twice a day. And one morning as I came
from the fire drill (the watchers had dwindled to myself and
another boy) , I accosted our neighbor with the lunch box and
asked him how his children were. He said: "Poorly, poorly,"
as if to himself, without looking up from the ground, and
went on, his tall, skinny figure more bent than ever. That
night, before I went to sleep, I prayed God to spare the man's
children. But in the morning the man failed to appear. I ran to
Chubb' s house, where I learned that both children had died
during the night. I went to sit on my porch and tried to picture
the desolation in the afflicted house, whose whiteness, re-
lieved by the pink of geraniums and the deep blue of pansies
in the window-boxes, now sparkled in the morning sun. As at
the Haskinses', not a sound came from the house.

Two days later I watched the funeral from a window of my
house. There were fewer people than I had seen at the
Haskinses', and only one carriage. When the husband and
wife came out of the house, I saw that they were not crying!
They were both dressed up, he in a spring overcoat and a

252 A LOST PARADISE

black derby, she in a suit and hat, with a dark veil over her
face. She carried a bunch of geraniums. When she came to the
carriage door she faltered as if she had accidentally missed a
step, and her husband raised her up and helped her in and got
in after her. Strange people, as strange as the Haskinses!

The sign was removed from their house, and the next
morning the man passed the firehouse carrying his lunch box
as usual. And that afternoon and for about a week the lady
came out to water her flowers, and a little after six o'clock
her husband came through the wicket gate and they went in-
doors without saying a word. Then one day the sign went up
again on their house. I was astonished to see it there, for I had
been told that diptheria attacked only the young. But Chubb's
mother said that this case was an exception, that the woman
had taken her children's death so "hard 77 that she was left
with little "resistance" to anything "in the air." I wondered
how Chubb's mother could know all that. At the same time I
was relieved to hear her say it. It strengthened my desire to
believe that they were as human as w, though they perhaps
regarded as a weakness any outward show of pain. Undaunted
by my failure to save the little children, I again prayed God
to spare their mother. I could not imagine what would become
of the man without any family at all.

The next morning I could not get out of bed, though I tried
several times to do so. When I failed to come down to break-
fast, my mother went to my room and found me "on fire,"
her standard phrase for a temperature. In view of the epidemic,
my father himself went at once for the doctor, and when the
doctor came and said, even before he examined me, that \
had caught the infection, my mother began to cry loudly in the
Jewish fashion, and my father, looking, I thought, troubled
himself, commanded her sternly not to be "a woman." I
found this and the general commotion my illness induced
around the house reassuring. In my lucid intervals (my mother
in recalling her days of anxiety boldly stated, science to the

A Connecticut Interlude 2 253

contrary notwithstanding, that my temperature, fluctuating
crazily, once reached the incredible height of 108 degrees), I
took pleasure in the contemplation of the animated despair
around me. When I passed the crisis and began to mend, I felt
as if I had done something handsome and generous for my
family. And I suffered myself to be interminably caressed,
and my every want anticipated, with a show of impatience
which I thought justified by the miracle of my survival and
even becoming in one on whom the happiness of an entire
family depended.

For weeks I had been so preoccupied with myself that it
was only when I was permitted to walk about the room that I
remembered the lady next door and asked about her. My
mother, with many asides adjuring the Almighty to keep
such visitations from all Jewish homes, but especially from
ours, told me that our neighbor had died the day after I was
taken ill. Soon after the funeral her husband gave up his house
and went to live in another town, my mother did not know
which. A new Christian family had moved in, an old lady and
her niece, also not young. They had brought a piano, on
which the niece played occasionally. My mother said the
niece played well, but she played only one piece, over and
over again.

I went to the window to look at the familiar house. The
window-boxes were in the same place, and in them were the
same flowers. The lawn was cut. The white clapboards of the
house and the green tin roof glowed in the sun. Nothing had
changed. Yet it seemed such a long time since I had watched
the dead lady watering her flowers, the dead children playing
near her on the lawn, and the tall, bent man with the tin
lunch box in his hand walking toward them. To my surprise,
I did not feel sad. The remembered picture caused my heart
to contract with a delicious ache. It was so beautiful and
right, like the memorable groupings and scenes in stories and
poems that I had stored in my mind and could recall whenever

254 A LOST PARADISE

I chose, thus experiencing at will the exquisite pang of my
first coming upon them. From this storehouse I now conjured
up several affecting moments as companion pieces to the
once actual, now remembered, grouping on the lawn, and I
was gratified by their xsthetic kinship. I recalled the picture
of Evangeline and Gabriel Lajeunesse, their not meeting as,
unaware of their proximity, they passed each other on a river
on a starless night, to be lost to each other forever; of Enoch
Arden, who, after witnessing the happiness of his wife,
returned to his lonely room to live through his "dark hour"
unseen; of Oliver Twist dozing off happily in his pleasant
room in the country, unaware of the evil forces closing in on
him; of the open-eyed, blind Pew tapping loudly with his
stick on the gravel outside the Admiral Benbow; of the peril
of David Balfour as a flash of lightning revealed him poised on
the uncompleted, treacherous outside staircase of the House of
Shaws. All these had a kinship of beauty or emotion or both.
They all moved me to tears, but I knew them for tears of joy.
In myself, too, I felt a joy in an upsurge of strength, an arro-
gant pleasure at having been chosen to survive when so many
had died. And now the sound of a piano penetrated my reverie
and presently usurped all my attention. It was the old lady's
niece playing in the next house. She was playing a pleasant
tune in waltz time, a piece I had never heard before, one that I
felt I should like to learn. I hoped it was a "Bromo-Seltzer
piece." If not, and if my mother's report was accurate, I
would probably hear it often enough to enable me to play it
without ever having to see it.

Because of our economic prosperity, the atmosphere of our
home in Waterbury was less tense than I had ever known it to
be in New York. The twelve dollars a week my father
brought home was sufficient to warm, feed, and clothe us. It
also enabled my mother to dispatch a few dollars now and then
to relatives in Russia, though still without the knowledge of

A Connecticut Interlude 2 255

my father. An attempt was made to begin payments to Mr.
Harris in London on the debt we owed him. But he returned
the five dollars with a note in which he said he never had any
idea of lending us money, that he had meant his "contribution"
as a gift, and had told us it was a loan for fear that we would
otherwise refuse it. He begged us to accept the money as our
"small inheritance," for in his will he was leaving everything
to "Palestine," and he was certain that so endearing and
enterprising a family as ours would have no trouble in making
their way in America. He could not, of course, know the
trouble we had had in making our way in New York. My
mother, out of pride, never complained to Mr. Harris in her
letters to London. And here in Water bury neither of my
parents was obliged to be enterprising. Life for all of us was
reasonably pleasant.

On the matter of my religious upbringing my father showed
a forbearance which, in the light of his former intransigence,
I found it hard to understand. However much I had tried to
conceal it in New York, in Waterbury my religious skepti-
cism was quite apparent, and my interest in music and litera-
ture had the effect of highlighting my indifference to Hebrew
studies and the strict observance of ritual which absorbed my
father. Perhaps he had given me up as hopeless in those direc-
tions. At any rate, the piety of his eldest son was sufficient to
guarantee the welfare of his soul in the world to come. I was
not made to attend synagogue except on important holidays.
And while he never suspected that I played the piano at home
on Saturday mornings, my father pretended not to notice
minor infractions of Sabbath rules which I permitted myself.

He must have guessed that I went on Saturdays to a
matinee at the Jacques (pronounced Jakes) Vaudeville House
on West Main Street, for on coming home from the theater I
was so full of what I had witnessed that I could not resist
repeating some of the jokes and imitating the characteristics of
the headliners. Having once tasted the delights of vaudeville in

256 A LOST PARADISE

the outdoor theater at Lakewood, I had implored Solomon to
finance a weekly matinee for rne at Jacques. With a view to
fostering an ally in his courtship of Molly, or perhaps out of
unmotivated kindness, Solomon gave me fifteen cents every
Saturday ten cents for a seat in the gallery and five for an
ice-cream soda. I had hinted to Solomon that those of my
friends and schoolmates who attended the Saturday matinee at
Jacques always capped the afternoon with an ice-cream soda
after the show.

My Saturdays were now full to overflowing. I played the
piano in the morning. After a deliciously heavy Sabbath
dinner at noon, my father and mother would take the tradi-
tional Sabbath after-dinner nap. I would slick my hair and tidy
myself up, for all the young patrons of Jacques looked neat
and clean. It was good to walk the mile to Jacques and feel
myself a part of that recognizable stream of well-attired
youngsters which, fed from side streets, was converging on
the theater. Inside, Jacques was very unlike the Grand Street
and Windsor theaters in New York. Before the show began,
the patrons were somewhat noisy. But there was no confusion
in the matter of seating. Only the popcorn- and candy-
vendors running up and down the aisles reminded me of the
Jewish theaters. And the moment the lights went out, all
noises ceased abruptly.

Though the performers (except the pianist) changed
weekly, the ingredients of the show never varied. The over-
ture came first. A spotlight would isolate the upright piano in
the pit (there was no orchestra), and the never-changing and
ever-popular and admired pianist would emerge to deafening
applause, bow many times, seat himself, and launch into the
"overture," a potpourri of the tunes of the period, ornamented
with runs and arpeggios, and concluding with a great display
of virtuosity. This done, and rapturously greeted by the
audience, a uniformed attendant would appear from the wings
and remove the cardboard sign with the numeral I from an

A Connecticut Interlude 2 257

easel standing at the extreme left front of the stage, revealing
a card marked II. With No. II the show was on in earnest.
For three hours one sat entranced through acts by acrobats,
trick bicyclists, soft-shoe dancers, hilarious skits in which
real pies were prodigally expended, sweet singers of ballads,
and raucous singers of ragtime, dog acts (my favorite was the
canine response to a fire-alarm in which small dogs slid down
poles and clambered aboard miniature fire engines, which,
accompanied by a great clanging of fire-bells, were then raced
off the stage by other dogs harnessed to them), and well-
known actors or actresses in scenes from their Broadway
successes.

A block away from Jacques stood Poli's, the theater of
concerts and serious drama. The posters on the billboard of
Poli's pictured important moments in the different plays that
followed one another twice a week. I longed to see them, but
the price of admission was more than double that prevailing
at Jacques, and I did not think it wise to overplay my role of
go-between in my brother's love suit by an additional demand
for money. I was destined to witness my first play in English
without his help. One morning the postman delivered a letter
addressed to the "Reverend Morris Chotzinoff." It was in
English, and it advised the "reverend" addressee that a box
at Poli's had been placed at his disposal for the opening per-
formance of one of the greatest dramas of all times, enacted
by a celebrated Broadway cast. The Ninety and Nine was the
mystifying name of the play. The letter went on to say that
The Ninety and Nine featured effects of a most sensational
character never before seen on any stage, and that Its theme
was religious, embracing all creeds, and bearing a clear
message of faith and hope for all humanity. The producers of
the play hoped that the "reverend" gentleman and his family
would accept their invitation and that perhaps he would
express his approval of the play to a gentleman who would
interview him after the final curtain.

258 A LOST PARADISE

The great day came at last. We all wore our Sabbath
clothes. As my father was going In his role of "Reverend,"
we decided he must wear his new, shiny stovepipe. The lobby
of Poll's was full of wall-to-ceiling mirrors that reflected us
flatteringly from every side. We took our places ostenta-
tiously in the box. I had never before sat in a box, and I was
happily conscious that people in the pit were looking up at us,
some through telescopes. But I was startled to find the boxes
on the other side occupied by priests and clergymen in black.
They had doffed their hats. I glanced at my father's stovepipe,
which sat imposingly on his head. This, I felt, made us
conspicuous and marked us out for Jews. For the first time
in my life I experienced a desire for conformity. I called my
father's attention to the hatless clerical gentlemen on the other
side. He took the hint, removed his stovepipe, and placed
it on the floor beside him. He then took out the skullcap he
always kept in his pocket and covered his head. But the skull-
cap, being a rarity in Waterbury, was even more conspicuous
than the stovepipe, and attracted much more attention. I could
do nothing further, for my father never went bareheaded
except to bed. Fortunately, the lights suddenly went out, the
orchestra began to play music. To rny delight it proved to be
the Light Cavalry Overture, which had used to ring up the
curtain of the Grand Street Theater. Now all eyes were
turned toward the stage.

The drama did indeed live up to the promise of the letter to
my father and the colored billboards. In retrospect it appears
to have been an up-to-date version of the parable of the
Prodigal Son. Its features are dim in my mind. But quite vivid
still are the two scenes illustrated in the posters, for which I
waited expectantly and which on the stage were breath-
takingly realistic. What looked like a real engine, propelled
by real engine wheels, raced through a real fire. The tattered
hero had one hand on the throttle, and with the other clanged a
great bell. The combined sounds of the hissing of the flames

A Connecticut Interlude 2 2 59

and steam, the motion of the wheels, and the clang of the bell
achieved a crescendo that was almost insupportable. At its
peak It was overpowered by a fearful grinding of brakes. The
engine slowed down, the fire was left behind, glowing faintly
in the distance, the huge machine came to a halt, and the
exhausted engineer descended to the ground, where a throng of
anxious people shook his hands and praised him for his
courage and daring.

The next and final scene depicted the church I had seen on
the posters. The tattered engine-driver walked in and, finding
it deserted, made straight for the organ, at which he seated
himself and began to play. He played beautifully, and I began
to be affected by the soft, lofty, impersonal organ sounds,
when my father rose precipitately and, declaring that we had
been tricked into witnessing a heathen rite, left the theater.
We had no choice but to follow him, and I never knew how
the play finally ended. At home my father, still irate, called
for a basin of water and a towel and solemnly washed and
dried his hands, saying that he had committed a sin and was
cleansing himself of it. I never knew what he thought of the
play.

It was also in Waterbury that I heard my first purely
instrumental concert. A billboard at Poli's one day proclaimed
the only appearance in our city that year of the celebrated
Creatore and his celebrated band. The price of tickets ranged
from one dollar to twenty-five cents. Fearing to miss this
single opportunity (who could tell where I or the band would
be next year?), I did not hesitate this time to approach my
brother. To my delight, Solomon was himself eager to hear
the famous band. He bought two seats in the balcony, in the
very first row. On the day of the concert I worried so lest we
might arrive late that Solomon and I were at the theater half
an hour before the doors opened. By that time I was in such a
turmoil of expectation that, forgetting we had reserved seats, I
ran ahead of my brother, to be among the first to get in. As I

260 A LOST PARADISE

ran I became aware of a boy of about my own age and size
running toward me. I tried to dodge him, but whenever I
veered to the right or left he did the same. Inevitably he
must run into me, and suddenly he did, and we collided, my
forehead bumping with a loud noise against his. The blow
sent me reeling backward. At the same time I realized that I
had run headlong into one of Poll's full-length mirrors. The
boy I had seen running toward me was my reflection! Solomon
now appeared, laughing at my odd mishap. With the blade of a
pocket knife he always carried with him, he flattened down a
great bump that had arisen on my forehead, and we made our
way less hastily to the balcony.

From the moment Creatore emerged from the wings, I
forgot all about my accident and the bump on my forehead.
The celebrated leader had on a uniform of blue with white
trimmings, as did all the members of his band, except that his
trimmings were more plentiful and whiter. He was bare-
headed. His hair was long and fell in disorder around his head
and the back of his neck. I thought he looked every inch a
high priest of music. He began with the William Tell Over-
ture, which I was to hear for the first time it was, strangely,
not among the overtures in Madam Zamoshkin's repertoire.
The piece was electrifying. I knew the story of Tell from one
of our school readers, and now I heard it unfold in its broadest
outlines in orchestral sound: the pastoral Swiss background
against the sudden loosing of the War of Liberation. And
Creatore himself was magnificent. Like a general who aims to
leave nothing to chance, he took command of every phrase,
even of every note (he beat out each note of the English horn
solo in the pastoral episode, at the same time weaving and
suggesting a variety of nuances with his baton) . In the final
"War" episode the great leader outdid himself in directions to
the several sections of his band, turning with lightning agility
from side to side, releasing cascades of notes from the flutes
and piccolos, exciting the cornets to more stentorian vehe-

A Connecticut Interlude 2 261

mence, pleading with the trombones for piercing, golden
sound, and whipping up the whole to a frenzy of musical
carnage of almost unbearable magnitude.

Yet, brilliant as he proved himself in the William Tell
Overture, Creatore was even more compelling in the "Mise-
rere" from // Trovatore, which followed it. Here he was
dealing with emotion, with the human heart, not with peace
and war, and his behavior to his men underwent a startling
change. Even before he signaled the soft opening chords, he
assumed an air of hopeless dejection, which communicated it-
self gradually to the audience. His head fell on his chest, his
shoulders rose to his neck in a hunch, and his hands were
outspread, frozen in a gesture of resignation. After standing
motionless in this attitude for the time it took the house to
achieve a startling silence, Creatore released a down beat
with the most mournful of gestures. I could imagine nothing
sadder than the sounds that forthwith issued from the trom-
bones.

But I was already anticipating Manrico's solo: "Ah, I have
sighed to rest me," and wondering how Creatore would treat
that noble aria, which, I was certain, would be played by a
cornet. Indeed, when it arrived, a cornet did play it. But he
had hardly begun when Creatore stepped down from his
podium, sank to his hands and knees, and crawled through a
maze of music stands and players' legs to the solo cornetist.
There, still on his knees, he straightened up and beat time in
great sweeping motions, almost in the cornetist' s face. The
cornetist, raising his instrument and his head toward the
gallery, blew soft, sad, tawny notes in my direction, while
Creatore begged and implored him to give of himself and his
art without stint. The effect on the cornetist was hypnotic,
for he played with an extravagance of emotion which went to
the heart.

Later the same player was entrusted with a lively theme and
variations, which he tossed off with the utmost dexterity and

262 A LOST PARADISE

brilliance, quite as if he were not the very same person who a
moment earlier had given such poignance to Manrico's plaint.
I treasured my first concert at Poli's, and decided to show my
gratitude to Solomon by picturing him in my next letter to
Molly as a patron of music. This, I hoped, might induce Molly
to feel "in that way" about her foster brother.

I was approaching my thirteenth birthday. At thirteen a
Jewish boy becomes a man in every sense of the word, and his
dedication to a responsibility to God and man for his acts is
celebrated with the solemnity appropriate to so momentous an
event in his life. So far I had known very little of personal
responsibility. But as to becoming a man in the physical sense
I had for some time had intimations of a mysterious and
disturbing character. These intimations ran parallel with my
discovery of and interest in a new kind of literature, whose
existence I had never even suspected.

Since I had first looked into the adventurous world of
Robert Louis Stevenson in Wool worth's on East Main Street,
my favorite authors had grown in number. I craved adventure
in a world of action, and my instinct led me to authors who
provided it. Chief among them was Alexandre Dumas, whose
works I encountered accidentally while browsing in the
public library on West Main Street. Milestones in my life
were The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
I saw at once that French intrigue was both subtler and bolder
than English. Besides, there were women in Dumas, a sex
Stevenson had neglected in his books, though, to be sure, it
was an omission I had not noticed. They were a new kind of
women, attractive in a way to make a boy of twelve or
thirteen feel grown-up and important. They were not "good"
women in the usual sense, and it was rather disconcerting to
realize that their very want of conventional goodness was
not the least part of their attraction for me. The attractive
women in Dickens were all good. Even Nancy was a good

A Connecticut Interlude 2 263

woman, in spite of her association with criminals and her
betrayal of Sikes. What a totally different creature was the
little seamstress in The Three Musketeersl I had heard vaguely,
in the conversations of my sisters, about "loose" women in
literature who had been unfaithful to their husbands. Madame
Bonacieux, the mercer's wife, not only was unfaithful to her
husband, but laughed and joked about her infidelity as if it
was no sin! Nor did d'Artagnan, her lover, take the situation
seriously. What a far cry d'Artagnan was from the equally im-
moral, but guilt-tortured hero of Chernishevsky's What is to be
Done? The Frenchman took everything with levity adven-
ture, peril, love, but a strange kind of love, ephemeral, not
founded on affection, easily discarded and forgotten love, in
short, as adventure. This kind of love seemed natural in the
life of a Frenchman. Why shouldn't it be natural in the life of
all men, Jews included, who aspired to be brave and generous?

In all my life I had not met a girl or woman so alluring as
Madame Bonacieux. I wondered whether she could flourish
only in an era as brave and careless and chivalrous as the
France of the last four Louis, and was now extinct as a type.
Yet equally fascinating was Milady, though for different
reasons. Milady was beautiful, haughty, inscrutable, and,
alas, evil, and she deserved, I reluctantly admitted to myself,
her dreadful fate. But when I began to read the scene describ-
ing her execution on the bank of the river, I could not bear it
and was obliged to put down the book for the moment. For I
loved Milady, with all her faults, and I also loved Madame
Bonacieux. And if I had to choose between them I should not
know what to do, because (I dared not admit to myself) I
wanted them both!

The women in The Count of Monte Cristo were not exciting,
like those in The Three Musketeers, but the Count more than
made up for this. The idea of vengeance, conceived and
executed on a scale so grand as that of the poor, wronged
sailor, was absolutely breath-taking. Ever since I could re-

264 A LOST PARADISE

member, I, too, had planned revenge after every wrong or
injustice inflicted on me. I had thus far not suffered evil
machinations of the magnitude of those that sent Edmond
Dantes to a dungeon in the Chateau d'If. But I had harbored
ideas of revenge as devastating as those devised by the Count
of Monte Cristo. I had even contemplated patricide. Fortu-
nately my father had abandoned naked cruelty as a weapon
against a part of his family, and there were moments now
when I could even feel affection for him. Ideas of revenge,
however, persisted in my mind. I hoped that misfortune would
overtake the anonymous boys who had stoned the rabbi of the
synagogue. I dreamed about challenging Chubb to a fight and
felling him with the first blow. And some day when the world
would have proclaimed me its greatest poet, I would visit
Miss Quinn at the Webster School and remind her of her
hostility to my youthful verses at a time when encouragement
was so vital to my development as an artist. However and I
counted it not as weakness, but as the magnanimity of a true
poet I would leave behind me a copy of my latest book of
poems, inscribed simply: "To my teacher, from her pupil,
S. C." I could picture her surprise, her feeling of gratitude, not
unmixed, I hoped, with one of guilt.

But this literary world of intrigue, revenge, bravery,
magnanimity, of reckless, generous men and earthy women,
was soon to be eclipsed by a new world, one less artistically
and realistically meritorious, but more exciting for an ado-
lescent boy. One fateful day, hunting for book bargains in a
second-hand shop, my eye was caught by the titles of two
paper-covered novels in a heap marked one cent apiece. The
first book, A Mad Love, promised a sensation. Dora Thome,
the second, I found irresistible because of the illustrated cover
showing a young woman and a man in a passionate embrace at
the edge of a lake on a moonlit night. I had no wish to own the
books, but I felt an urge to read them, if only hurriedly. My

A Connecticut Interlude 2 265

curiosity satisfied, I would then, perhaps, resell the books to
the second-hand dealer for a penny for the two.

At home I locked myself in my attic room and consumed
both books rapidly, with a kind of guilty relish. I was at once
aware that they differed glaringly from the other books on my
shelves. They gave me a consciousness of my physical being,
and certain parts made me feel warm and brought the perspira-
tion out on my forehead. I was puzzled at this effect on me, for
the two stories were surprisingly high-minded and moral, not
at all like The Three Musketeers. The heroines of both were, if
I can trust my memory, simple English country girls who were
seduced by men of wealth and station. Though themselves
innocent in soul, they reaped the wages of sin, the one com-
mitting suicide in the lovely Swan Lake of her seducer's
country estate, the other murdered, I believe, by whom and by
what means I cannot recall. From every moral and ethical
standpoint both novels were exemplary. Yet their effect on me
was disturbing. Why was it that the trysts of d'Artagnan and
his paramour made pleasant reading (though I could guess at
what must have occurred at them) while the meetings of
Dora Thorne and her noble lover at night in the magnificent
park of his country place sent the blood rushing to my head?

Now my nights were disturbed by dreams of seductions in
silent parks. I became the licentious hero of each book, and I
felt myself drawn to both innocence and its spoliation.
Madame Bonacieux, once so desirable in a jolly, open way,
seemed no longer interesting. I would not, like d'Artagnan,
cross swords for her possession. But the innocence of Dora
Thorne, her unconsciousness of the danger around her, the
sweet, trusting surrender of body and soul to her lover, made
her desirable. For hours at a time I sat rereading Dora Thome
and A Mad Love, returning again and again to the trysts at
night and the seduction scenes, my senses luxuriating in
unformed, nameless, yet somehow shameful desires. Nor did

266 A LOST PARADISE

the influence of these stories vanish when I put the books
down. The sensations they induced persisted throughout the
day, in school and at play. I tried reading my old favorites
again, but my mind wandered from the characters and inci-
dents that once had absorbed me completely.

Only music could free me from the pleasurable oppression
of awakening desire. There was so much to think about while
playing the piano technique, phrasing, tone-color, dynamics!
Feeling and emotion had to be built up coldly and deliberately
out of many elements. In the process one forgot everything
else. Even in performing before an audience one could not
succumb to the emotions one was building up, without en-
dangering the structure of the music. In those troubling days of
my thirteenth year, I rushed from my oppressive sessions
with A Mad Love and other novels of that nature which I
sought out and purchased in second-hand stores and junk
shops, to the cerebral release of piano practice.

A month before my thirteenth birthday arose the delicate
question of my bar mitzvah (ceremony of confirmation) . The
question was a delicate one because my father had permitted
me a certain laxity in the observance of Jewish ritual. My
skepticism about religion in general, as yet undefined, was
nevertheless apparent, and for reasons of his own my father
did not choose to try to break it down. I suspect that my
mother was not without influence in his decision not to attempt
coercion. Whether because they had grown older or because
of the necessity of closer family ties in an environment
predominantly Christian, or through release from economic
pressure, the relations of my parents were now equal. In-
deed, my mother's influence on my father and on family
matters had become dominant, though its manifestations were
so subtle that I doubt my father was at any time conscious of
not having the upper hand. And now it was not my father,
but my mother who approached me on the subject of my bar
mitzvah. Pointing out that unlike most Jewish boys I had not

A Connecticut Interlude 2 267

been required to go to Talmud tor ah (school of higher religious
studies), she implored me to please my father (and ease her
own situation) in the matter of the "bar mitzvah ceremony. I
could not deny my mother anything, and I undertook to learn
the prescribed chapter in the Shulkhan Aruk, and the commen-
taries on it. The thin old rabbi whom I had saved from being
stoned taught me a Hebrew oration, which I committed to
memory, though I did not understand its meaning.

In the morning of the important day, I accompanied my
father to the synagogue, where I put on phylacteries and a
prayer shawl for the first time. Both were a present from my
father. My mother's gift was a lovely silk bag for the phy-
lacteries, which she had herself sewn and embroidered. At
home I was greeted by an assembly of our friends and person-
ages from the synagogue. At a signal from the old rabbi I
delivered my Hebrew speech. The rabbi then solemnly spoke
to me in Yiddish, telling me that I was now a man, eligible to
be one of a minyan (quorum), that my father was no longer
responsible for me to God, but that henceforth I should be
held accountable by the Almighty for my sins. I was then
congratulated on all sides and my mother dispensed whisky,
wine, and teglich (small fritters) . I could not help being moved
by the ceremony at the synagogue (adjusting the phylacteries
was fun) and at home. Yet I knew that my elation was
transitory and that my true pleasures were not in ritual,
which everlastingly complimented God, but in "goyish"
books, music, and the expression of life in art. I began skipping
morning prayers and the "laying" of phylacteries; and one
day I put the little silken bag away for good. My father
pretended not to notice, and our life went on as it had before I
had been inducted into Jewish manhood.

My graduation from the Webster School was approaching.
One morning in May, Miss Quinn told us that it gave her
pleasure to announce that the class would graduate in a body.
Committees were appointed to get out the class book and to

268 A LOST PARADISE

decide on the shape and color of the class pin. The graduation
exercises were to be held at Poli's Theater. They were to
consist of choral singing, a piano solo, a selection on the cor-
net, a valedictory, a recitation, and speeches by the principal
and one or two political figures of the city. The girls were all
to wear white dresses, the boys blue suits. I was selected to
be the class orator, and Miss Quinn gave me a long poem to
memorize. To my dismay, the piano solo was allotted to a
girl of fourteen who had been studying the piano for the last
eight years. This girl, unacquainted with the "Freedom
method," played mechanically well, but without imagination.
Miss Quinn said she was sorry to disappoint me in the matter
of the solo, but that it would be unfair to the rest of the class
to have me occupy too prominent a place in the graduation
exercises.

As soon as I had committed the poem to memory, Miss
Quinn helped with ''elocution" and "gestures," both essential,
she maintained, to an adequate public performance. The poem,
called "Winning Cup's Race," seemed to me, after considera-
tion, a happy selection. It was both a romantic and a dramatic
poem. Its tone was conversational, something quite new in
poetry to me, and at first I was displeased with its jaunty air.
But I quickly caught on to its dramatic possibilities. Miss
Quinn said it called for subtlety in inflection and broad
realistic gestures if the audience was to get the full flavor of its
dramatic story.

Miss Quinn had planned my interpretation in every detail.
"You, Samuel," she said at the beginning of our rehearsals,
"are telling something that once happened to you. You are a
jockey on a great estate in England. It's a strange tale, and you
are telling it directly to an English Lord. Now, Samuel, you
must imagine that every person seated out front in Poli's is
the Lord you are addressing. Of course no jockey ever spoke
poetry, so you must pretend that this is not a poem, that you

A Connecticut Interlude 2 269

are just saying what happens to come to your mind." For all
that, I found it difficult to pretend that "Winning Cup's
Race" was not a poem. Its meter, which resembled that of
Evangeline, seemed to defy any attempts at conversational
delivery:

"You've never seen Winning Cup, have you? Stroll

round to the paddock, my lord;
fust cast your eye over the mare, sir; you'd say that,

upon your word,
You ne'er saw a grander shaped "un in all the 'whole

course of your life.
Have you heard the strange story about her, how she won

Lord Hillhoxon his wife?
No? . . ."

Miss Quinn bade me forget all about the rhymes, but I
couldn't. "Don't pause after 'upon your word,' even though
there is a comma," she said, "but go into the next line quickly
like: 'you'd say that, upon your word you ne'er saw'
And, Samuel, move a few steps to the right when you say:
'Stroll round to the paddock, my lord.' In other words,
Samuel, stroll to the paddock, and pretend the Lord is strolling
to the paddock with you. And now we have the first gesture.
When you say: 'just cast your eye over the rnare, sir,' point
to the mare," and Miss Quinn stuck out a forefinger at an
imaginary mare, "and at the words: 'you ne'er saw a grander
shaped 'un in all the whole course of your life,' outline with
both your hands the shape of a beautiful horse like this,"
and Miss Quinn drew in the air with both her hands the belly
and back of a large horse.

I spoke the lines in an offhand manner and made the
gestures. It had not the confidence of Miss Quinn's delivery,
nor the definition of her gestures. But she made no comment,
and I continued:

270 A LOST PARADISE

". . . /'// tell you <why Winning Cup, here,
Has lived in this lazy grandeur since the first time they
let her appear "

I paused, compelled to do so by the rhyme.

"Don't stop," Miss Quinn shouted at me; "go on go on!
Appear where? Appear what?" "On a racecourse," I has-
tened to add. Miss Quinn told me to go back and run the two
lines into each other, conversationally. This I did.

"... Has lived in this lazy grandeur since the first

time they let her appear

on a racecourse to run for a wife, sir the loveliest
girl in the land. ..."

Miss Quinn worked hard with me every afternoon after
school, and in a few weeks "Winning Cup's Race" was
whipped into a dramatic monologue of obvious vividness and
force. I copied all of Miss Quinn's gestures faithfully. At
home I had my mother stand up in front of me as "my lord,"
and I recited the poem and executed my gestures straight at
her. Long before graduation came around I was letter-perfect,
and I moved my body and my arms in strict synchronization
with the words. Miss Quinn signaled the completion of her
task by telling me one afternoon after I had gone through the
poem: "It will do."

My mother was more enthusiastic, though I could not be
sure that she comprehended the drama of "Winning Cup's
Race" as I paraphrased the poem for her in Yiddish. And,
truth to tell, I was hazy about the story myself even as I
boldly reconstructed it for her. Young Lord Hillhoxon had
ruined himself and his ancestral estate by gambling. His
jockey, Bob Doon (that is, I), foreseeing his master's ruina-
tion, had secretly trained the foal, Winning Cup, to run in a
race that would restore the young Lord's fortune and win him
the lovely Lady Constance for a bride. That much was clear.

A Connecticut Interlude 2 271

But as the devoted jockey deplored gambling, I could not see
how the winning of the race could accomplish what it did. I
did not, of course, disclose my perplexity to Miss Quinn. If I
had, Miss Quinn would have exclaimed at my obtuseness. As
for my mother, I stressed the running of the race itself. This
she understood. She found my gestures evocative of the
excitement and tension of the race. My performance as a
whole had, she said, the overtones of a "Lebembild" (por-
trayal of life) as vivid and heart-warming as a serial novel of
high life in a Jewish daily.

The expense involved in being graduated was considerable,
and I was again obliged to appeal to Solomon. He gave me
five dollars, which paid for a graduation suit, the class book,
and a blue enamel class pin. The class book looked in all re-
spects like a regular book. It had many pages, and it was bound
in glossy white linen-covered boards. Everything in It, with
the exception of an article by the school principal, was the
work of the graduating class. For some reason never told me,
I was not represented in the book. This omission was hard to
explain to my family and friends, who knew me for a poet
through my own frequent representations. I could not deny,
however, that the poem of the class poet in the book was a
worthy production. It was, In essence, a hymn to the future of
the graduating class. It pointed out, ringingly, the high moral
quality of our training at Webster School and called on us to
be forever worthy of the school's tradition of learning, honor,
and good citizenship.

Good as the poem was, I thought the prose in the class book
of a higher order. I was particularly taken with a humorous
story called "Jones's Dog," contributed by a quiet boy who
had hitherto been notably unproductive (in class) in a literary
sense. In the story, Jones, an impeccably dressed youth, took
his dog for a stroll around the town one Sunday morning after
church. The dog was described as gentle, though slightly
frisky, and his master as polite and well-bred to a painful de-

272 A LOST PARADISE

gree. Yet the moment they emerged on West Main Street
both of them were overtaken by the most extraordinary, comic
misfortunes. Jones's dog broke his leash and ran into side
streets and alleys, followed by his anxious master. Mishaps
piled up at a sidesplitting rate and achieved on the last page a
climax altogether unexpected and pathetically hilarious. For
just as Jones had succeeded in shooing his dog out of a deep
puddle of dirty water, who should turn the corner of the street
but Jones's best girl, dressed in her Sunday clothes. To Jones's
(and the readers') horror, the dog, recognizing the young lady
and desiring to show his pleasure at the meeting (so the author
intimated), made a flying leap at her and spattered her with
mud from head to toe. Needless to say, Jones, unable to face so
appalling a situation, fled homeward, presently to be followed
by his wretched but well-meaning pet. And there the author
left him, cleverly refraining from resolving the unhappy
Jones's marital future. I translated the story to my family and
they agreed that I had not exaggerated its comic values. My
father, who disliked animals, nevertheless laughed at the tale,
and said: "What else could one expect of a dog?"

In the midst of my preparations for graduation, the slaugh-
terhouse where my father was employed shut down for lack
of sufficient business. My mother, not at all disheartened, said
it was high time that we returned to New York and civiliza-
tion. What, she inquired, could become of me in Waterbury?
What outlets were there for my various talents? Must I grow
up to become a laborer in the Waterbury Brass Co. and daily
take my lunch along in a tin box? And what was my father's
future in this provincial city? Should he fail to get employ-
ment in some other slaughterhouse, he would have to depend
for a living on a very limited number of Jewish weddings and
circumcisions. The shutting down of the slaughterhouse she
recognized, as she had so often done with calamities in the
past, as a blessing in disguise.

My father was not really loath to leave a city that had

A Connecticut Interlude 2 273

proved as injurious to his health as London had, a city, more-
over, where Jews were practically nonexistent and the wear-
ing of a beard was a real hazard. He took a satisfaction, how-
ever, in hinting that my mother's eagerness to move back to
New York was not unrelated to her desire to be near her
daughters. This was true enough. Hannah's baby was pres-
ently due; and Molly seemed perversely to be uninterested in
marriage. My mother could only feel she was needed on both
fronts. Yet she thought fit to deny my father's insinuation and
offered to swear upon the head of her only son that she was
speaking the truth. Notwithstanding my growing agnosticism,
it was with a feeling of apprehension that I heard my mother
airily lying to God. I half expected immediate annihilation by
a shocked and outraged deity. And, as so often in the past, I
wondered if my mother was really the devout, old-fashioned
Jewish wife we thought her.

At any rate, she began at once to prepare for New York.
Molly was empowered by letter to find a suitable apartment of
three or four rooms, perhaps in a neighborhood less thickly
populated than the East Side ghetto. For our sojourn in Water-
bury had given my mother a feeling for space and cleanliness
which the cramped conditions of the East Side could hardly
gratify. She suggested Harlem as a region that had begun to
draw the better-class Jews. There my talents might be better
nurtured. And my father would find fewer competitors and
more young people who might be eager to marry and beget
male children.

Graduation day arrived at last. In the afternoon we had a
final rehearsal on the stage of Poll's. I could hardly believe
that I stood on the very boards that had accommodated
Creatore's band and the realistic mechanical wonders of
The Ninety and Nine. When my turn came to recite "Winning
Cup's Race," I felt nervous as I advanced to the edge of the
stage and faced a dark, empty, silent, menacing auditorium.
What if I should forget a line, a word? My voice trembled

274 A LOST PARADISE

throughout. But I got through the poem without forgetting
anything. Miss Quinn spoke no word of praise or blame.

At eight that evening we again took our seats on the raised
platform in front of a painted backdrop depicting the junction
of North, South, and East Main Street, with Apothecary's
Hall, the city's most impressive building, in the foreground.
A few minutes later the curtain rose, revealing the auditorium
now brilliantly lighted and completely filled. I at once sought
and found my family. They were sitting quite close to the
stage. My father wore his skullcap, and his shiny stovepipe
hat rested on his lap. My mother had on her "good" dress,
and over it a spangled shawl, another one of Solomon's
"foreclosure" trophies.

At a signal we rose and sang "Shoulder to Shoulder," a
martial setting of a poem describing the valor, camaraderie,
and determination of Napoleon's Old Guard. This was fol-
lowed by a lyric ballad, "By the Side of a Mossy Bank a
Modest Violet Grew," celebrating reticence not only as a
virtue but as one that pays off well, for at the end of the song
the retiring violet triumphed over bolder flowers. I sang along
with the class mechanically.

While I sang I went over "Winning Cup's Race" in my
mind several times from beginning to end. I was letter-perfect.
Yet when Miss Quinn motioned to me that my turn had come,
I could not recall the opening words. And as I rose and stood
still by my seat for a moment, looking straight at my teacher
in what must have seemed to her utter bewilderment, she
formed her lips in patterns that I recognized. "You've never
seen Winning Cup, have you?" her lips said in an exaggerated
manner, and her face looked ridiculously contorted, like mine
when I made faces at myself in the mirror. Instantly the suc-
ceeding words came to my mind.

I advanced to my appointed place near the footlights. I felt
millions of eyes probing my face. At the same time I knew that
Miss Quinn was staring right into the back of my head, 'willing

A Connecticut Interlude 2 275

me not to forget, not to bring disgrace on her and the class. I
looked up at the gallery, seeking refuge there from the staring
eyes around me. The gallery presented a wavy, unidentifiable
mass, soothing to my troubled senses. I felt that I must look
only at the gallery or I would be lost. It now seemed like an
age since I had taken up my stance at the rim of the stage. Miss
Quinn must be reaching the limit of her patience with me. I
should begin at once; if only I could remember the opening
line, the others would follow. An oppressive quiet was cir-
culating in the theater like pervasive, humid air. Suddenly I
remembered Miss Quinn's puckered face, and the opening
line came to me with a rush. Mechanically I stuck my right
hand out toward the gallery and took a few steps forward, as
Miss Quinn had taught me to do. "You've never seen Win-
ning Cup, have you?" I heard myself say, though the voice I
heard was not at all like mine. "Stroll round to the paddock,
my lord." On, on the voice went, while my hands and feet
and my body made the expected motions.

The story of Winning Cup's race unrolled itself more
rapidly than I had rehearsed it. Yet I heard, with astonish-
ment, the unfaltering voice discharge every word with the
expected inflections. In spite of the speed of the recitation, it
took a long time. There were moments when my thoughts
wandered and I forgot to listen to what the voice was saying.
At those times extraordinary irrelevancies filled my mind:
Chubb, and his sister Jessie, the fire drills, the sound of Valse
Bleu from the house next to ours. Yet when my mind returned
to listening, the story of Winning Cup's race was at the point
where it should have been by then. At last I heard myself
shouting: "For God's sake, Winning Cup, now!" And I
leaned forward at a perilous angle, like a jockey making a last
desperate effort to inspire his mount to an ultimate exertion.
Thus I hung, frozen for a moment. Then my body relaxed.
" 'Twas over," the voice said calmly, "we'd won by a head!"

There was a moment of utter silence. Then I heard a noise

276 A LOST PARADISE

around me like the sliding of egg coal down a narrow chute.
My eyes left the balcony and looking downward I saw hands
clapping. They were applauding rather listlessly, I thought.
I bowed, as I had been taught to do in such an event, and re-
turned to my place. I sought Miss Quinn's face for some sign
of approbation. But Miss Quinn was looking on the floor. The
principal rose and began to distribute the diplomas. Each
recipient was applauded. I expected to be singled out for a
special demonstration. But when my name was called and I
advanced toward the principal, the applause that greeted me
was even smaller in volume and intensity than that bestowed
on the graduates who had preceded me!

The exercises ended with our singing of "My Country,
'Tis of Thee" and The Star-Spangled Banner. By prearrange-
ment I met my family in the theater lobby. There I was
warmly congratulated by my brothers and sisters. But I
managed to persuade my mother to reserve her more physical
demonstration of affection for the privacy of our home. Once
there, though I could not shake off a feeling of uneasiness, I
suffered myself to be kissed and embraced by her, and I ex-
perienced a sense of relief when she said that I looked and
sounded like a great actor.

From the English-speaking members of the family I elicited
more detailed praise. And to assure myself that they had not
missed any of the fine points and subtleties I had hoped to
convey, I recited the poem again, pausing at certain spots to
inquire if I had used the same intonation and gesture in the
theater, and to be assured vehemently and enthusiastically
that I had. I then craved their indulgence for another per-
formance, this time without interruption. In the security of
our front room and surrounded by affection and admiration, I
recited "Winning Cup's Race" with a skill, an ease, and a
brilliance that overwhelmed both my family and me. Com-
pared with it my performance at Poll's was admittedly unas-
sured, pale, and stilted. I read in the troubled eyes of my
audience that they, too, understood the difference, but a tacit

A Connecticut Interlude 2 277

delicacy obviated any reference to the comparison. From
myself I could no longer hide the feeling that "Winning Cup's
Race" had been a fiasco in the theater. That, and not her per-
sonal hostility to me, was why Miss Quinn had not returned
my inquiring look, and why there had been no crescendo of
applause when I rose to receive my diploma.

The memory of my first public failure embittered my last
weeks in Waterbury. When I met a schoolmate on the street,
I suspected that his greeting, whether cordial or indifferent,
concealed either pitying condescension or malicious triumph.
Indeed, my feeling of guilt increased with the passing of time,
and the picture of my frightened self staring at the gallery in
Poll's Theater and waiting for the once so familiar, but now
elusive opening words of ''Winning Cup's Race" to take
shape in my mind grew more and more vivid and terrifying.
Could I ever again face an audience? Whether in music or in
drama, the great man I expected to be would have to demon-
strate his powers, not in the security of his home, but in the
threatening, hostile impersonality of the concert hall or the
theater.

What else could I aspire to that held no such threat to my
vulnerable sensitiveness? Poetry, perhaps. The poet was not a
public figure. But how could the poet know the pleasure his
works gave to the world? By counting the number of books he
sold? But how impersonal was such a reward! Better, perhaps,
the promise of even such a partly satisfying moment as when,
at the conclusion of my nightmarish recitation, I identified
the rattling sound of coal moving down a chute as reluctant
applause than the poet's cold knowledge that some unseen
persons were reading his works. JVIy fears were great, but my
yearning to shine in public was even greater. Besides, music
was my forte, not recitation. I could not be frightened playing
the piano in public. For one thing, I did not have to look at
anything but the keys. I must henceforth set my will to banish
fear or else become reconciled to an inglorious future at home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

i Widening Horizons

HAD hardly installed ourselves in New
York in a railroad flat in a house on Madison Avenue, at the
corner of i mh Street, when the alarming news arrived from
Waterbury that my brothers Albert and Solomon had "failed."
The details of this catastrophe were not touched upon in
Solomon's letter to my father, which left us to add "failed" to
our limited and uncertain vocabulary of business terms like
"chattel mortgage" and "foreclosure." What Solomon had
made plain was that they had lost everything and were con-
templating a removal to California, a state, in his opinion,
eager to encourage the building trade. There, being unknown,
they could start anew. Fortunately, they had salvaged enough
from the wreck of their fortunes to get them to the small but
thriving town of Mariposa, which they hoped would be but a
steppingstone to the greater city of Los Angeles. The impli-

Widening Horizons 279

cation of this news for us was plain. We could no longer in a
pinch count on my brothers for financial aid. And in a pinch
we decidedly were at that very moment.

In a family council held immediately upon the receipt of
Solomon's letter, it was decided that I must find a job of some
sort and for the duration of our financial crisis pursue my
musical studies on the side. I scanned the want ads in the New
York World for jobs in our neighborhood. This would save me
both carfare and time. There seemed to be a few such, par-
ticularly in the offices of doctors and dentists. The latter,
especially, appeared to be in need of boys of my age to sweep
out their offices, answer doorbells, and do a variety of chores
that required little skill, and they were prepared to pay wages
of between three and three and a half dollars a week for the
"right" boy.

When I appeared in these offices at eight in the morning,
the stated time for interviews, I found, to my dismay, the
waiting-rooms crowded with applicants. No matter how early
I arrived, there was always a crowd ahead of me. In weeks of
answering suitable advertisements I was able to achieve an
interview only once. After a brusque inquiry into my back-
ground and an examination of my qualifications my name and
address were noted down and I was dismissed with the
promise that a decision would be communicated to me by
mail. The letter never came.

In the meantime my mother had established credit at a
butcher's shop, a fish store, and a grocery. The last was lo-
cated, most conveniently, in the house we lived in. Two years
of freedom from financial worries had not dampened my
mother's buoyancy and general optimism, nor her powers of
persuasion. And she now proceeded to establish relations with
tradespeople as easily as she had done before we moved to
Waterbury. I was not present at her initial interview with the
grocer; but it had been highly successful, and the grocer had
given her an oblong-shaped notebook in which he recorded all

280 A LOST PARADISE

our purchases. She had agreed to weekly payments. Each
Saturday night, for a month, she asked for a reckoning and
paid it in cash. Thereafter her payments tended to grow ir-
regular, and one day when I was sent to the store to do the
shopping, the grocer, to my embarrassment, refused to fill the
order and in the presence of several customers declared ve-
hemently that my mother had exhausted his patience, that he,
too, had to live and buy provisions and pay rent, and that, in
short, he could not extend us further credit without visiting
the greatest injustice on his wife and children. On hearing
about this my mother went downstairs at once and returned
a quarter of an hour later with the provisions I had failed to
get. There were times, too, when the butcher failed to deliver
meat, and the baker, bread and rolls. But a visit by my mother
to their shops always set things to rights, and the stream of
provisions resumed flowing. We ate very well indeed.

Learning of our return to New York, relatives and friends
began visiting us in large numbers, as in the old days. They
generally arrived just before mealtime. My mother, even be-
fore greeting them, would pour a quart or so of water into the
soup kettle, and I would be dispatched to the various stores for
an extra can of herring in tomato sauce, another rye bread,
and a chunk of hard salami. When Nochum and Chaie Rive
Flayshig and their two boys paid us a visit, my mother would
not hear of their returning to their home in Brooklyn (a
journey of at least two hours) late in the evening, and the
visitors were put to bed in a body on the floor of the front
room. The following morning Chaie Rive rose early, washed
and dressed the twins (their curls had given way to high
pompadours, but their hair still required their mother's at-
tention), and put on their jackets, preparatory to leaving. Her
preparations took a long time, as if she were reluctant to de-
part, as indeed she was. At that delicate moment my mother
remarked that it must be indeed an unfeeling parent who
would take her young children on a long journey to Brooklyn

Widening Horizons 281

on an empty stomach. And Chaie Rive, loudly protesting, al-
lowed herself to postpone their return until after lunch.

My father plainly showed his annoyance with my mother's
excessive hospitality and Chaie Rive's delaying tactics, and
when the guests finally left, my mother upbraided him for his
want of delicacy, denying his accusation that she put herself
out only for her relatives, and calling on God to absolve her of
any display of partiality. This led to a quarrel, and for days
the atmosphere in the house was oppressive with animosity.
To escape it, Molly and I went for walks in Central Park after
supper or visited Hannah, who lived on Ninety-fourth Street
near the East River, five flights up in a house facing George
Ehret's brewery.

Hannah had grown very large, but her pregnancy had made
her face more beautiful than ever. She now seemed indifferent
to the things that had used to trouble her, such as the hardships
and calamities of friends and our economic plight. Her own
situation was, at the moment, rather favorable. Her husband
had captured an impressive "job" of fresco-painting which
would take many months to complete and net him three hun-
dred dollars. Half of the sum had been paid in advance. On the
advice of friends who knew and feared the fluctuations of her
husband's profession, Hannah invested ninety dollars in a dia-
mond ring. As against the insecurity of banks, whose failures
were periodic, a diamond ring was as safe as anything possibly
could be. Indeed a "stone" (as it was familiarly called) had an
intrinsic value not subject to economic ills. Economic depres-
sions even had the curious effect of appreciating the value of a
"stone." At the worst, a diamond could be instantly translated
into cash at the pawnbroker's.

Negotiations for the purchase of the ring were carried on
privately with a friend of Jake's who had a friend in the dia-
mond business. One Sunday Hannah summoned my mother,
Molly, and me to her house to help her choose a stone from
among an assortment that Jake's friend's friend was bringing

282 A LOST PARADISE

over. The stones, spread out on a velvet mat, were dazzling a
The dealer delicately picked out the diamonds with a pair of
pincers and held them up to the light and turned them around
to let us see them sparkle. The stone we finally chose was
priced at one hundred dollars. My mother made one of her
best efforts to bring this down to seventy-five. But she re-
luctantly settled for ninety when the man exclaimed: "If
you won't buy it for ninety, you don't want a diamond," and
brusquely poured the jewels into a small paper envelope that
he shoved into the inside pocket of his jacket with unmis-
takable finality.

The purchased stone was then taken to a jeweler's on Grand
Street and mounted on a gold ring. Henceforward the presence
or absence of the diamond ring from the fourth finger of Han-
nah' s right hand served as an index of her economic state, as
well as of that of her family and friends. At those rare periods
when Jake was doing well, Hannah was glad to lend the ring to
friends in need, who pawned it and then redeemed it at the
first opportunity. Emergencies might arise in her circle while
the ring happened to be out at the moment for the benefit of
somebody. At those times Hannah would do her best to re-
deem the ring herself and pass it on to the neediest of the
moment. An emergency operation, a lying-in, the instant re-
quirement of a dowry as an inducement to a youth to marry a
friend's daughter whom he had got in "trouble," required the
intervention of Hannah's diamond ring at the shortest notice.

Hannah's baby, a boy, was born at a time when the ring
was in her possession. The night before, Jake appeared at our
house to tell us that Hannah's pains had begun and that he
had already summoned the doctor. My mother went back
with him to stay the night, and early the next morning I ran
to Hannah's house.

I was permitted to go into the bedroom with Jake. Hannah
lay in bed with the baby close at her side. The infant was
swaddled in several layers of clothes, and only his thin,

Widening Horizons 283

shriveled, crinkled, ancient-looking profile was visible. He
made no sound. Hannah looked very pale and serious, and
when she saw me she stretched out her right hand toward me.
Her fingers were bloodless, long, and thin, and on one of them
the diamond ring sparkled, a tiny point of radiance in the dark-
ened, silent room. I kissed her hand and sobbed for joy, for I
had heard of women dying in childbirth. Then Jake said she
must sleep, and we left.

Sometime later an apartment in our house fell vacant, and at
my mother's insistence Hannah moved into it. The proximity
was beneficial all around. I spent a good deal of time in Han-
nah's house playing with the baby and watching Jake make
water-color sketches for his big job. The baby had grown
young-looking and had lost his wrinkles. I began to take
pleasure in his company, and was happy when I was permitted
to hold him or take him out for an airing in his carriage. In no
time at all he became everybody's preoccupation. Even my
father showed a mild interest in him, though he said we all
gave him exaggerated attention. As for Hannah, the baby ab-
sorbed all her waking hours and, when he was indisposed or
ill, her nights as well.

My mother, having seen Hannah through childbirth, now
addressed herself to the problem of getting Molly married.
Solomon had been written off. Molly swore that never, under
any circumstance, would she consider marrying her foster
brother. Several men whose acquaintance she had made in
New York during our stay in Waterbury visited our house
and were closely examined by my father and mother for their
eligibility as suitors. Molly seemed heart-free, but she showed
a slight preference for a Mr. Glanz, a quiet, well-spoken man
of about thirty-five, who was in the insurance business and
seemed prosperous. Mr. Glanz took Molly to an occasional
concert and ball, but always brought her home before the ball
began. He did not care for dancing, and said as much. For all
his quiet demeanor, my parents did not feel comfortable in his

284 A LOST PARADISE

presence. "He behaves," my mother once remarked, "like a
man who is hiding something. ... I wouldn't be surprised if
he had traveled!"

A man who traveled much was a legitimate object of suspi-
cion. It wasn't even possible to make inquiries about him. How
could one know what he did in distant places! He might even
have a wife somewhere at the ends of the earth! One night as
Mr. Glanz was sipping a glass of tea my father looked up
from his book and directed a loaded question at him. "Am I
right, Mr. Glanz, that you have seen something of the world?"
Mr. Glanz smiled and did not answer immediately. My
mother looked much concerned. Mr. Glanz was obviously
well-to-do and might yet prove to be an ideal match for Molly.
But when Mr. Glanz finally spoke, he might just as well have
exploded a bomb in our kitchen. "Yes," he said, "I have seen a
bit of the world in my youth. I once spent a year in China."

My mother gasped. "In China!" she repeated incredulously.
"In China," Mr. Glanz affirmed. "Another glass of tea," my
mother suggested, rising hastily and taking up Mr. Glanz's
glass and saucer. My father resumed his book, and after
drinking his second glass of tea Mr. Glanz politely took his
leave.

"I knew he was concealing something," my mother said
sadly. "My heart told me. Yet he seems nice."

My father nodded. "One never can tell," he said. "China!
Imagine!"

Molly put up a half-hearted defense of Mr. Glanz. A good
man, she argued, need not necessarily succumb to corruption
even in so distant a place as China. But, not really caring for
Mr. Glanz, she let the matter drop, and the next time he
called she was quite short with him and declined to go walking
in Central Park. Mr. Glanz, perhaps as a result of his travels,
was no fool. He took the hint, and we never saw him again.

With the elimination of Mr. Glanz, my mother's concern
for Molly's future became acute. My father, who, since our

Widening Horizons 285

return to New York had reverted to his old attitude of cold-
ness and sometimes even of hostility to my mother and her
children, began referring pointedly to Molly as a "mahdr A
mahd was a maedel who had passed the freshness of youth.
While not wholly a spinster, a mahd was so dangerously close
to being one as to cause her family the utmost concern. Molly
was twenty-one, going on twenty-two, and perilously close
to the age limit of a maedel. My mother made it a point to
strike up an acquaintance with the women she met in the
grocery and at the butcher and fish shops and learn in a casual
way about the composition of their families. But when she
hinted to Molly that the son of a neighbor or acquaintance was
eager to call on her, my sister flew into a rage and accused
her mother of lacking pride. She even threatened to move
away.

At that period Molly, no less than my mother, was in a
nervous state. The basement shop on Vesey Street where she
worked was gloomy, and the Armenian proprietor, who was
the only occupant of the premises besides herself, made her
feel uneasy. It might take a long time to find another job, and
we could not afford to do without Molly's wages even for a
week. It was decided that I should accompany Molly to work
and find out for myself whether there were grounds for her
fears. I thought it only prudent to supply myself with a
weapon with which to meet the situation that Molly feared.
In a vacant lot on Fifth Avenue I found a brick. I put it in a
paper bag and tied a cord around it to make it look like a box
lunch. Armed with this and a book to while away the time, I
went along to Vesey Street with Molly one morning.

The "factory" was indeed a gloomy place. The room in
which Molly worked was underneath the sidewalk, and the
window, which let in an uneasy light, was close to the ceiling.
A single gas burner fixed to one wall threw an eerie light on
two workbenches and several stools and cardboard crates.
The proprietor sat at a workbench manufacturing cigarettes.

286 A LOST PARADISE

Near the bench stood a low stool that held a phonograph with
a very large horn. The appearance of the man was odd and,
to me, frightening. He was tall, thin, and stoop-shouldered,
and his long, unkempt hair was black streaked with gray, like
a mixture of black pepper and salt. His hands were yellow,
bony, and gnarled, his eyes deep-set and smoldering.

Molly said: "Good morning. This is my brother," but did
not explain my presence. The Armenian gave me a piercing
look over his shoulder and murmured something unintel-
ligible. Molly took off her hat and gloves and sat down at her
bench on the other side of the room. I found a rickety stool,
sat down between Molly and the Armenian, and opened my
book.

Presently the Armenian reached under his bench and picked
a cylindrical wax record from a half-dozen standing there. He
fitted it on the phonograph, which he wound up. After some
preliminary rasps the horn began to emit the strangest sounds
I had ever heard. The voice struggled out of the horn as
if under desperate compulsion to escape from the confines
of the cylinder, filling the wretched apartment with the
screeching and wailing of a soul in torment. Now soft and
pitiable, then suddenly raucous like a cry of pain at some
dreadful hurt, the voice hurled itself at the damp walls and
gathered force from the rebound. It flashed through my mind
that this could be the a woman wailing for her demon lover"
in Kubla Khan, Coleridge's strange poem whose imagery I
felt, but whose sense I could not make out.

When, following a piercing coloratura flourish, the music
stopped, the Armenian removed the cylinder and said in my
direction and in a strange accent: "Nice you like?" He then
chose another record. This, with some slight difference,
sounded like the first. The records followed one another, and
when he had played the lot he began over again. So the
morning wore away. At noon Molly and I went outdoors and
ate our sandwiches while walking the streets. When we re-

Widening Horizons 287

turned, the Armenian was gone. In the afternoons it was his
custom to visit tobacconists' and restaurants and take orders
for his brand of cigarettes.

That night we held a family council, and I described the
Armenian's basement and the Armenian himself so vividly that
it was agreed that the danger to Molly was greater than our
need of her wages. I accompanied her, still armed with the
brick, to Vesey Street for the rest of the week. And when she
was paid off on Friday, she told the Armenian that she would
not be back. Even as we stood in the doorway I feared an as-
sault, and I clutched the brick with both hands. But the Ar-
menian said nothing and made no move. When we reached the
sidewalk we heard the sound of one of his records seeping
through the transom. We broke into a run toward the street-
car as if we feared pursuit.

Molly soon got another job in more respectable surround-
ings. No longer needed as a protector, I could turn my atten-
tion to finding some lucrative work for myself. Through my
mother's skill at blandishment and at advertising my merits as
a pianist and musician, I obtained my first pupil. This was a
sad-looking, squint-eyed spinster who had definitely passed
into the category of mahd. My mother had made her ac-
quaintance in the grocery store and had cleverly turned her
thoughts to studying the piano. I suspect that my mother
stressed the importance from a man's point of view of music
among the accomplishments of a young lady. And, indeed, a
plain-looking young lady who played the piano had an edge,
in the matrimonial market, over those who didn't. Piano-
playing was noted down as an asset in the shadchen's little
notebooks.

This mahd had no ear for music, and her fingers were too old
and ungiving for the piano. But she paid me fifty cents a week
for two lessons and an hour of practice a day on our piano.
At the very first lesson I realized that I could regard her only
in a monetary light. The lessons were a chore for both of us.

288 A LOST PARADISE

In addition to being untalented, the spinster was nervous and
ill at ease. She could not concentrate on fingering and count-
ing out loud. Her thoughts seemed to be on other things, and
her eyes were often on the door, as if she expected the en-
trance of the prospective groom my mother had probably
guaranteed. For a year, at least, she persevered. Then, noth-
ing in the way of a suitor having materialized, she abandoned
the piano. Sometime later I heard, with astonishment, that
my former pupil had succeeded in obtaining a husband. My
mother did not hesitate to attribute the good fortune of the
mahd to her having studied the piano with me. To hear niy
mother talk, one would think that she had herself arranged the
shiddach (match).

Another and more unexpected source of income was brought
to my notice by my old friend Mr. Katz, the owner of the
music shop on East Broadway. I acquainted Mr* Katz with
my need for earning money, hoping that he would recommend
me as a teacher of the piano to beginners. He told me that the
teaching field was overcrowded and that even beginners now
aspired to be taught by the top men in the professions noted
virtuosi and teachers like Montana and Ivan Tschirsky. I
asked Mr. Katz whether Madam Zamoshkin was also num-
bered among the outstanding teachers. He said that the
Zamoshkins had disappeared two years previously, leaving
many debts (including a large unpaid bill in his own shop)
and the suspicion that Madam Zamoshkin's "Freedom
method" was as controversial as her claim that she was legally
the wife of Mr. Zarnoshkin.

Mr. Katz thought that an educated boy like myself could
make money teaching English to immigrants who desired to
learn the language in the shortest time and were willing to pay
for it. He knew of a newly arrived brother and sister who were
on the lookout for a cheap young teacher, and he would take
pleasure in recommending me. As to the fee, he counseled me
to be bold and ask for twenty-five cents a lesson per -person.

Widening Horizons 289

Mr. Katz was as good as his word and arranged an inter-
view. My boldness in the matter of my fee so impressed the
brother and sister that there was no need of bargaining.
Twice a week I journeyed to Norfolk Street, where they
lived, and taught them how to read, write, and pronounce
English. They made good progress. And soon they induced
two of their friends to give up night school, where progress
was slow because of the large classes, and take the short cut
of private lessons with me.

My teaching activities in piano and English brought me two
and a half dollars weekly. With this and Molly's and Sarah's
wages, my mother now had fourteen dollars a week with
which to run the household. The actual cost of running the
house came to a great deal more, but my mother juggled the
fourteen dollars in a masterly way, paying so much on ac-
count here and promising full payment a week later there.
Sometimes she would advise me to avoid passing the shoe
store on i i6th Street for a fortnight, or she would caution all
of us not to loiter on our stoop for the time being. Then we
surmised that the grocer's bill was long overdue and that he
would be on the lookout to intercept one of us to obtain what
satisfaction there might be in airing his grievance publicly
and putting us out of countenance before the neighbors. Not-
withstanding my mother's warnings and the precautions we
took, the grocer once confronted Sarah as she was turning into
the house laden with provisions from a rival grocery. In the
hearing of neighbors and passers-by who had collected around
the stoop, he abused my mother for an ungrateful, scheming,
and unprincipled woman who, not content with running up
enormous bills at his store, added insult to injury by taking
her custom elsewhere, where she and her methods were as yet
unknown! The following Saturday night my mother entered
his store as if nothing had happened, paid a few dollars on ac-
count, and proceeded to give a large order, which the grocer
dutifully filled.

A LOST PARADISE

Our economic situation, while leaving my mother unruffled,
had a depressing effect on Molly and me. It seemed to me and
to Molly (Molly was quick to accept and adopt my ideas and
opinions, despite the disparity in our ages) that the wealth of
the world was unevenly and rather stupidly distributed. This
unreasonable and unfair distribution was also proof to us of
the validity of atheism; for a deity would certainly have
ordered it otherwise. In the New York American, which Molly
and I read assiduously, there were stories and photographs of
people who had no need to work and who spent their time ar-
ranging lavish and costly entertainments for one another. We
read about the Vanderbilts and the Goulds, and we resented
them, though we were avid to learn the details of their friv-
olous lives. We followed the course of dazzling international
marriages with concealed relish, while openly excoriating the
rich Americans for buying foreign titles and the noble for-
eigners for selling them.

In Central Park Molly and I took pleasure in calling out in-
sults to the beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen as they
drove past us in their carriages and electric landaulets, or rode
in pairs on horseback on a bridle path that ran the length of the
Park. What an affront to the poor was this bridle path, cre-
ated and maintained for the pleasure of a useless minority! Yet
many of the pampered ladies I watched go by me were lovely
to look at, and I had daydreams (which I did not confide to
Molly) in which a beautiful lady in a carriage would on seeing
me command her coachman to stop. I would be invited to ride
in the Park, with the explanation that something in my face
had caught her attention. The adventure ended in my marry-
ing the lady if she was not too old or, if she was, her daughter,
whom I was to meet at supper in the family mansion on Fifth
Avenue, adjacent to the Vanderbilt house. Then having ac-
quired my wife's fortune, I would spend a good deal of it in
helping the poor, especially talented young boys. I would
roam the poorer districts of the city incognito and listen for the

Widening Horizons 2 9 1

sounds of piano-playing. And when I discerned arresting
musical qualities in the performer, I would reveal myself and
make him and his family independent for life.

My own piano repertoire had grown considerably. I had
left far behind me pieces like The Burning of Rome, The Eight
Sufferers, and The Alpine Shepherd's Evening Call, which now
seemed to me insufferably juvenile and sentimental. In Katz's
music store I bought the first volume of Beethoven Sonatas.
And having read somewhere the legend of the origin of the
"Moonlight" Sonata, I committed that composition to mem-
ory.

It was an unusually difficult piece, but its alleged "pro-
gram" and the Freedom method helped me to ignore its techni-
cal hazards. True, the music did not quite conform to the de-
tails of the legend. I had read that the great composer, wander-
ing at night through the streets of Vienna, had heard the
sounds of his own music coming from a lowly cottage. Enter-
ing the house, he discovered a blind maiden at a piano. He
introduced himself. The blind girl, overawed, asked him to
play. As Beethoven seated himself at the instrument a ray of
moonlight fell athwart it. Then and there Beethoven im-
provised the "Moonlight" Sonata, to the unutterable delight of
the blind girl and posterity.

In the sonata, the story related, the composer depicted
gentle spirits dancing on a moonlit lawn. The image guided
me in my interpretation of the first movement, though I could
not help wondering at the extremely slow tempo of the spirits.
But what did Beethoven depict in the violent, stormy last
movement? I could find no clue in the legend, so I arbitrarily
made up a scenario to fit the dominant mood of the music. In
my version Beethoven improvised only the first two move-
ments for the blind girl. He then took his leave. On the way
home the moon suddenly disappeared and a violent storm en-
sued, with peals of thunder, flashes of lightning, and torrents
of rain. On reaching his home Beethoven, drenched to the

292 A LOST PARADISE

skin but creatively inspired, rushed to the piano and im-
provised the last movement, incorporating in it the drive and
fury of the storm and, in the intervals of its cessation, invok-
ing the tender image of the blind girl in the cottage. As a
complete contrast to the "Moonlight" Sonata, I added Liszt's
Second Rhapsody to my new repertoire. The tremendous
technical problems of the Rhapsody succumbed to the Free-
dom method and its wonder-working aid, the loud pedal. My
rendition of these two compositions, so utterly different in
quality, never ceased to move and excite my audience.

Apart from the members of my family, our relatives, and
friends, my audience now included the Finkles, a family that
lived on the third floor front in our house. The Finkles were
a father and mother, two daughters, and a son. My mother
made the acquaintance of the elder Finkles in the grocery
store. The elder Finkles were a remarkable couple. They
were of the same size and age, their features were almost
alike, and they were inseparable. Mr. Finkle had no visible
occupation, and, indeed, he did not require one, for his chil-
dren all worked and earned more than enough for the needs of
the family. Mr. Finkle accompanied his wife wherever she
went. Never were they seen alone. On their shopping tours he
carried the basket and some of the parcels. At home Mrs.
Finkle did the cooking while her husband swept the rooms,
washed the dishes, and peeled the potatoes and onions.

The elder Finkles were very proud of their children. They
had, to be sure, every right to be. The girls, Naomi and Reba,
were schoolteachers and the son, Harry, the oldest of the
three, was, most incredibly, a member of the great Metropoli-
tan Opera House chorus. I had read about the Metropolitan
Opera House in the New York American and had seen pictures
of some of the stars. But it was hard to believe that a member
of the company actually lived in our house. I longed to know
him and to talk to him. And one night his sisters brought him
to us and he asked me to play. I played Liszt's Second Rhap-

Widening Horizons 293

sody (it was by now called "The Rhapsody" by my family
and friends) .

I was less confident of my powers before a member of the
Metropolitan Opera House, and my playing reflected my
nervousness. To my delight, Harry Finkle said: "Bravo!"
which I understood to mean approval, and clapped his hands
with the rest of the audience. Yet I was sure that he had
noticed the inadequacy of my octaves, and I waited for his
judgment.

"Sammy," said my mother, turning to Mr. Finkle, "wants
to take more lessons. From what you heard, don't you think,
Mr. Finkle, that he doesn't have to any more? Don't you think
he's finished?"

Mr. Finkle smiled. "In music," he replied, "nobody is ever
finished. At the Metropolitan" the august word startled
me "many of the greatest singers go regularly to teachers."

"Do you go too?" my mother persisted.

"I, too," Mr. Finkle said gravely.

Later, over a glass of tea, Mr. Finkle was induced to talk
about himself and his glamorous duties at the Metropolitan.
No life could be more exciting. One night he was a courtier at
a Duke's palace helping to abduct the lovely daughter of the
Duke's jester. Another night he was a bon vivant playing for
high stakes in a Parisian gambling-house. He felt at home in
every variety of wig and costume. He was on the most familiar
terms with the Metropolitan stars. They conversed with him
in the wings and during intermissions. He related anecdotes
both serious and amusing. Some in the latter category I found
rather disillusioning. "One night, in Faust, my friend de
Reszke pressed an egg into Marguerite's hand I think Eames
was the Marguerite. Yes, it was Emma during their love
scene. Poor girl! She was afraid to open her hand until the
curtain came down." I liked the serious ones better, especially
those which told of last-minute substitutions of untried and
unknown singers for indisposed veterans of the opera house.

294 A LOST PARADISE

Mr. Finkle himself knew every bass role in the Metropolitan's
repertoire, and was ready at a moment's notice to replace any
scheduled star.

I could have listened to Mr. Finkle forever. But Hannah,
who had come down to our apartment to hear me play for our
important neighbor, managed to bring the conversation back
to me and my future. She agreed with Mr. Finkle that I re-
quired further study, and asked him to recommend a teacher.
Mr. Finkle had several suggestions to make, among them Ivan
Tschirsky and a certain Mr. Plesch. The latter, Mr. Finkle
said, was a Romanian musician and pianist of the highest re-
pute, though as yet not so well known as Tschirsky, Hannah
took down the addresses of both. When the Finkles left, she
said that I must lose no time in seeking out one or the other of
the pedagogues. And when my father raised a skeptical eye-
brow, Hannah said that she would herself pay for my lessons
and glanced significantly at the diamond ring on her finger.

My first choice was Ivan Tschirsky, whom I had once seen
for a moment in Katz's music store. Tschirsky looked like
Beethoven and was thought to be the illegitimate son of the
great Anton Rubinstein, a rumor that he himself had started
and carefully fostered. Mr. Finkle made an appointment for
me, and one morning I stood, with beating heart, in Tschir-
sky's presence in his studio on 1 1 6th Street. On closer in-
spection he resembled both Beethoven and the great Antoo
Rubinstein. I thought it rather a pity that he couldn't be the
illegitimate son of both. Before he asked me to play for him,
Tschirsky inquired if I had seen his new suite for piano,
Russia! recently published by Katz. And without waiting
for a reply he sat down at the piano and played Russia! for
me. The suite was in many movements, each bearing a color-
ful title and a sentence or two of description "Russia, cradle
of my soul ... a village at twilight . . . hark the dogs!
. . . the peasants dance and sing . . . they are happy . . .
the storm . . . hark the thunder! ..." He played with

Widening Horizons 295

every show of emotion, tossing his dark, long, coarse hair and
breathing hard. He seemed to be in the grip of an over-
whelming nostalgia for the country of his birth. At the same
time, he exploited the realistic touches in the suite, making the
piano bark like dogs and resound with rumblings like distant
thunder.

When I had complimented him on his suite and his per-
formance, he suddenly told me point-blank that his fee was
two dollars a lesson and asked me if I was prepared to pay it.
I suggested that perhaps he should hear me play first. He said
he considered an audition a lesson, and lessons were to be paid
in advance. I had brought no money with me. In any case, two
dollars a lesson was prohibitive. At that rate Hannah's ring
would in no time be liquidated. I tried bargaining. Would he
contemplate a dollar a lesson? Mr. Tschirsky grew angry and
shouted that he was an artist, not a fish-peddler. But when I
started to leave he advised me in calmer tones to make every
effort to raise the two dollars and return. He then autographed
a copy of Russia! which he took from a large pile of the suite
stacked up on the floor and presented it to me.

Hannah was in favor of my taking at least a few lessons from
Tschirsky. But I had been put out by his commercialism, and
I wished to try Mr. Plesch. Mr. Plesch lived in Bay Ridge, but
one day a week he taught his New York pupils in their own
homes. Harry Finkle wrote to him about me, and Mr. Plesch
replied, naming a day when he would call at my house and
hear me play.

I was quite unprepared for the kind of man he turned out to
be. I could see at once that he was a Christian. He was thin
and sandy-haired. His blue eyes were clear, yet they looked
troubled and inquiring. They appeared vitally concerned with
me, or my mother or father, or anyone he talked with. His
face was small, each feature delicately formed, the skin
tightly stretched over an exquisitely fashioned bone forma-
tion. He looked like an artist. He wore a formal gray Prince

296 A LOST PARADISE

Albert that he did not button and, underneath, a checked vest
and striped trousers. His starched collar was turned down and
its front obscured by a large dark-blue flowing tie. His voice
was slightly husky, and he spoke English with a strange, in-
gratiating accent. His gentle manner and unselfconscious
politeness put us all instantly at ease. No one so handsome, so
artistic, so individual, and so alien had ever come to our house.
I played for him, surrounded by my anxious family. He
pronounced me talented, and said he would be glad to teach
me. When Hannah asked him about his fee, he blushed and
said it was a dollar usually, but that the matter was mirnpor-
tant, and we needn't worry, that it would be all right whatever
we could pay or even if we couldn't pay at all. Hannah said a
dollar would be all right. Mr. Plesch said we must start to
build up my technique; and the next time he came he brought
with him a volume of dementi's Sonatinas and a book of finger
exercises with the curious name of the Little Pischna. The Little
Pischna was an introduction to the Big Pischna, which posed
the ultimate in finger problems.

I was rather taken aback by Mr. Plesch's choice of the
Clementi Sonatinas. Compared with works like u The Rhap-
sody," the "Moonlight" Sonata, and the overtures in my
repertoire, the Sonatinas were juvenile from both a technical
and a musical standpoint. But 1 was so drawn to Mr. Plesch
that I said nothing. To my surprise, he insisted on my using
the fingerings set down in the music and forbade altogether,
for the time being, any use of the loud pedal. When I men-
tioned the u Freedom method," he laughed and said it was more
a "crime" than a "method." With the Little Pisclma, and even-
tually with the Big Pischna, I would acquire the strength and
facility to play virtuoso pieces like "The Rhapsody." Until
that time I must practice and play only what he prescribed.
This was a blow, for it obliged me to forgo the little concerts
I played for my family and our neighbors. No longer could my
mother say of an evening, when the Finkles were assembled in

Widening Horizons 297

our front room: "Play something, Semeleh play 'The
Rhapsody,' " and when I played watch the faces of the
listeners narrowly for pleasurable reactions.

Mr. Plesch must have sensed our poverty, for he never
asked me to purchase music and always brought along what I
needed. And his diffidence in accepting his fee led me to the
subterfuge of slipping the dollar bill under his hat, which he
always placed on the lid of the piano. This saved us both from
embarrassment. Once when I was ill I had Molly send him a
letter stating that I would be unable to take a lesson that week.
But he appeared at the usual time, bringing a bag of oranges for
me. I was both happy and dismayed to see him, for the house
had not been tidied up as it always was when he was ex-
pected.

He seemed oblivious of the disorder around him. He sat at
my bedside and talked of music and his favorite composers,
Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. I had known about
Wagner for a long time through three pieces "To the Evening
Star" and the March from Tannhduser, and the Lohengrin
"Wedding March." But Strauss was quite new to me, and I
asked if he happened to be the Strauss who composed "The
Blue Danube Waltz," which was one of my old Bromo-
Seltzer pieces. Mr. Plesch said: "No!" quite positively. "This
Strauss," he told me, "was not only not the man who wrote
c The Blue Danube' ; he was a man who never could have writ-
ten anything so trivial, however innocent and pleasant. This
Strauss was a new David fending off the attacks of the musical
Philistines. He was a revolutionary and was suffering the fate
of all innovators. Wagner, too, had been abused in his time,
indeed was still being abused."

Mr. Plesch then talked about art. "Art, like life, is a per-
petual struggle. Each generation of true artists has to fight for
recognition. It has to destroy the enemy of art, as of life
tradition. Tradition, rules, restrictions are the weeds that
choke art, just as man-made laws choke life. . . ." Mr.

298 A LOST PARADISE

Plesch poured out words and sentences with passionate ve-
hemence, and I felt caught up In the torrent, not actually
comprehending what he said, but sharing his excitement and
feeling proud of being thought worthy to be taught a phi-
losophy of art and life so idealistic and so uncompromising.
He treated his pupils like equals, desiring only to inculcate in
them his own lofty virtues as man and artist. What a piece of
luck for me that we knew Harry Finkle, and through him this
wonderful man! What an accident all life was! If my father
had not lost his job in the slaughterhouse in Waterbury, we
should never have returned to New York and I should never
have met Mr. Plesch!

It was enough to make one superstitious. I had, of course,
always been superstitious, even when I questioned the ex-
istence of God. Undoubtedly powers, strange, mysterious,
and quite beyond mortal understanding, operated in the inter-
est or to the detriment of humans. These powers naturally
expected propitiation, and in the past, when I had desired
something greatly, I had propitiated them by avoiding the
cracks in the sidewalk when I walked in the streets. Not hav-
ing desired anything greatly for some time past, my super-
stitions had grown weak. I became careless in avoiding cracks
in sidewalks. Now, with the advent of Mr. Plesch, I realized
that my gratitude must be expressed in some secret acknowl-
edgment of the potency of the powers that brought him to me,
which otherwise might as suddenly take him away from me. I
resumed my avoidance of sidewalk cracks, and for good
measure decided thenceforward to put my left shoe on first
when I dressed in the morning. This procedure I adopted on
the theory that it was a pointed deviation from a universal
routine and could not fail to be appreciated by whatever in-*
corporeal agency had charge of my destiny.

I also looked about for a superstition with some reference to
music. It was not easy to invent something unmistakably
suitable, but at last I found one in reaching out with my right

Widening Horizons 299

foot to touch the right leg of the piano when I sat down to
practice. Superstitions, to be effective, had to be practiced in
secret. No one would notice that I always put my left shoe on
first, and I soon became expert, when walking in company, in
avoiding the cracks in the sidewalks without calling attention
to what I was doing. But it required ingenuity to reach out and
touch the leg of the piano with my right toe in full view of
people in the room without creating the suspicion that I was
behaving strangely. I was sometimes obliged to accomplish
this quite visible maneuver under cover of engaging someone
in conversation at the same time. And soon I was able to
practice this superstition as easily and as secretly as all the
others.

After my lesson Mr. Plesch would linger a few minutes
and talk about music or about me. His gentleness and warmth
invited confidence, and it was not long before he knew every-
thing about my family. One day he proposed that I should
come out to Bay Ridge on Saturdays for my lesson. There in
his home he would be able to give me more time. And as he
considered Saturday his day off, he would be obliged not to
charge me for lessons, all the more so as the round trip to
Bay Ridge would cost me thirty cents. Of course I saw
through this maneuver, though I didn't let on that I did. I had
to turn away to hide my emotion. Mr. Plesch shook me by the
hand and said it was a bargain and that he stood more to gain
than I, as he would no longer have to make the long journey
to 1 1 2th Street.

On the following Saturday at eight in the morning I took
the Madison Avenue streetcar down to the Brooklyn Bridge,
where I changed to another car that went to Bay Ridge. It
was a long trip, and I took along a book on the lives of great
composers to while away the time. Stimulated by Mr. Plesch's
comments on the tribulations of great composers, I got the
book in the public library on io6th Street, and I soon knew in
detail the gloomier aspects of the lives of Mozart and Beetho-

A LOST PARADISE

ven. Though I shed tears at their misfortunes, I felt that per-
haps misfortunes were necessary to their development as
artists, especially Beethoven's, for Beethoven's music really
expressed his battles with adversity. The music of Mozart,
at least the sonatas Mr. Plesch gave me to learn, did not ap-
pear to square with the unhappy facts of his short life. As for
Haydn, whose music I did not know at all, I thought him the
most disappointing, as a man, of all the great composers in the
book. He was pictured as a jolly person who had few troubles,
wrote music easily, enjoyed a great reputation, and died full
of honors and years. I could not believe that so fortunate a
man could write great music expressive of the sorrows and
joys of humanity.

Riding on the streetcars to Bay Ridge, I felt exalted at the
thought of a new and closer intimacy with Mr. Plesch in his
home, and I reread the life of Beethoven, hoping to find a
similarity between the great afflicted composer and my
teacher. Mr. Plesch was also a composer, though thus far he
had showed me only one of his compositions. This was a song
published at his own expense, a setting of a German poem with
the noble title "Lied ernes Judischen Sklaven" ("Song of a
Jewish Slave"). The words spoke of the historic sad plight of
the Jew, and envisioned a time when the shackles of prejudice
and hate would be struck from him. The music, appropri-
ately in the key of D minor, made vivid the agony of the Jew
and, if I recall rightly, also appropriately burst into D major
at the final words of hope. It was heartening that Mr. Plesch,
a Christian, could be so concerned about the plight of Jews.
This very fact lent credence to the promise of deliverance in
the song. Possessing a heart so overflowing with compassion,
Mr. Piesch, I thought, could with propriety be compared with
Beethoven the man. And it was not beyond possibility that in
time he might also be compared with Beethoven the composer.
Both men were lovers of mankind, honest, truthful, un-

Widening Horizons 301

worldly, and both regarded music as a means to banish un-
happiness from the world.

Mr. Plesch's house stood in a country setting, very much
like our house in Waterbury. Inside it was palatial. A maid in
a white apron let me in (not since I had dined at Mr. Harris's
in London had I again come face to face with a servant in any
house), and as I waited in the parlor I thought it the richest
and pleasantest front room I had thus far seen. Beautiful,
heavy, convoluted chairs and a sofa, all thickly padded and
soft, were artistically arranged round the room. And in an
alcove, in front of a bay window, stood a grand piano of
polished walnut. It had florid, curved legs, and on its top was
spread a large flowered Spanish shawl of many colors, its
long silky fringes almost reaching the floor. An open cabinet
close to the piano held music books, both in paper covers and
bound. On the walls were large framed pictures of great
musicians, among whom I recognized Beethoven, Mozart,
Handel, Bach, and Haydn (I resented the frivolous Haydn
in such august company). The dining-room, which adjoined
the parlor and had no doors, was also richly furnished. Low
over a circular dark table hung an elaborate gas chandelier,
its shade a large half-globe made of innumerable pieces of
differently colored glass. The walls were paneled in dark
wood and were completely ringed toward the ceiling with two
tiers of built-in bookshelves. I craned my neck to read the
titles of the books, and for a moment I felt as if I were again
peering through the window of Malkin's bookstore on East
Broadway. I read familiar names Dostoievsky, Tolstoy,
Hugo, Emerson, and Turgeniev. One entire shelf held books
with intriguing titles unknown to me Memoirs of a Revolu-
tionist, Exile in Siberia, The History of Anarchism in Europe,
Anarchism in America, The Philosophy of Anarchism, The
Anarchist Movement. In our house "anarchism" was a word to
be avoided, like the name Jesus Christ. "Anarchists" meant

JO2 A LOST PARADISE

assassins and persons who believed in "free love," and "free
love" was the negation of honorable, civilized passion. Could
Mr. Plesch be an anarchist? At any rate, the books testified to
his interest in the subject.

Mr. Plesch and a lady came into the parlor. He shook
hands with me and introduced the lady as Mrs. Plesch. Ob-
viously he was no anarchist, as there was a Mrs. Plesch! Mrs.
Plesch was a tall, large brunette with a prominent bosom and a
high pompadour. Mr. Plesch looked small indeed beside her. I
regretted noticing it, for he appeared, for that moment, to
have lost in my eyes some of his importance. Mrs. Plesch said
that Mr. Plesch had spoken favorably of me and that she was
glad to see me. She then left the room, and Mr. Plesch pro-
ceeded to give me my lesson. I was awed by the grand piano,
and my fingers faltered at first. But Mr. Plesch, with his
usual kindness, said I was not to worry, that I would soon get
used to the "animal."

I must have had a very long lesson, for Mrs. Plesch, look-
ing stern, came in to announce dinner. I put my music to-
gether preparatory to leaving, but Mrs. Plesch said that I was
expected to stay for dinner. During my lesson the dining
table had been laid with a lovely white cloth, as if it were
Friday night. Real silver-plated knives, forks, and spoons were
set at each one's place, and the moment we sat down the maid
came through a swinging door carrying a cut-glass pitcher
gleaming like a huge diamond, and filled our glasses with ice
water. I felt ill at ease and ate little, for fear of revealing my
ignorance of good table manners. And at one point I was com-
pletely put out by Mrs. Plesch's asking me why I didn't
butter my bread. I felt ashamed to tell her that it was forbid-
den to eat butter with meat. So there was nothing for me to do
but butter my bread, which I did, and for the first time in my
life I ate as indiscriminately as any Christian.

I could hardly wait to get home to describe the grandeur
of Mr. Plesch's house. My mother said she hoped that I would

Widening Horizons 303

not get too accustomed to luxury, and I said I should always be
happier at home than anywhere else. I lied, for I was even at
that moment looking forward to my next visit to Bay Ridge.
It surprised me how rapidly one did get accustomed to luxury.
After a month of Saturdays I felt at home with the padded
furniture at Bay Ridge and sat at dinner (I had a standing in-
vitation for dinner) as unselfconsciously as I did in my own
house. I ate my meat with butter, never once giving a thought
to the probability of divine retribution. And one momentous
Saturday Mr. Plesch asked me at table how I would like to
stay the night when I came the following week. I could
hardly answer him for joy. Instinctively I looked up at Mrs.
Plesch for confirmation. She said nothing, but looked hard at
Mr. Plesch. Mr. Plesch blushed and said: "I'll be able to have
more time with him on Sunday. And I think he could do with
some fresh air, don't you, dear?" Mrs. Plesch said, after a
long pause: "Yes, I suppose he could." So it was settled, and
again I was impatient to rush home and tell the great news.

In preparation for my first weekend visit, 1 accompanied
my father to the Russian bath on Friday afternoon. There I
ran the gantlet of the three temperature-graded steam rooms,
and after several hours of drastic soapings and washings
emerged pink and exhausted, feeling virtuously spotless. I had
on clean underwear, socks, and a shirt that my mother had
hurriedly washed for me. The next morning I set out for Bay
Ridge in the most sanguine frame of mind and with a sense of
physical elation.

It was a beautiful April day, and on my walk from the car-
stop to Mr. Plesch's house I sang out loud the themes of an
imaginary sonata that I had in mind someday soon to com-
pose. Mr. Plesch greeted me affably. But Mrs. Plesch damp-
ened my feeling of elation by asking me why I had not brought
along a nightshirt and "a change" \ I told her, with some em-
barrassment, that I had forgotten both at the last moment, and
I tried to arrive in my mind at what a nightshirt might be and

304 A LOST PARADISE

what was implied in "a change." Mr. Plesch quickly said it
was time for my lesson, and eased me into the parlor.

After lunch I was left to my own devices and I took down
Turgeniev's Smoke and lost myself in the portrait of the fasci-
nating, worldly, beautiful and unprincipled Irina. She was a
new type in my ever-expanding gallery of women.

After supper, visitors began arriving, both men and women.
I was introduced as if I were a grown-up, and I solemnly
shook hands with everybody. There was only one married
couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Posnick. The latter was very free
with me and took me off to a corner. She asked me my age
and whether I was in love, and on my looking troubled she
said one was never too young for love, that she herself must
have been around my age when she had her first love affair.
She was not actually beautiful, yet there was an uneasy excite-
ment in the way she looked at one and in the boldness of her
questions and confidences. She reminded me in some ways of
Irina.

I was asked to play, and Mr. Plesch explained that I was
still in the formative stage. He asked his guests to bear that in
mind. I played an early Beethoven sonata and a Rondo by
Weber. When I finished, I was applauded and made much of.
Mr. Posnick's disturbing wife took me in hand again and told
me I had a great future in music. She led me on to talk about
myself. I told her about my childhood in Russia, about my
family, my ambitions, and my love and admiration for Mr.
Plesch. "Have you been to any of our meetings?" Mrs.
Posnick abruptly inquired. "What meetings?" I asked, and
she looked surprised. "Hasn't Tibor [Tibor was Mr. Plesch]
taken you? No? Well, then Posnick and I will." I had a sud-
den illumination. I thought of the many books about anarchism
on the shelves in the dining-room. "Is Mr. Plesch an an-
archist?" I asked apprehensively. "But of course," Mrs.
Posnick replied wonderingly. "You didn't know? We all are.
And you must be one soon."

Widening Horizons 305

Mrs. Posnick must have told the Plesches about our con-
versation, for when the guests all had left, my teacher and his
wife talked to me at great length about anarchism. I asked
many questions, and Mr. Plesch unhesitatingly answered them
all, revealing an extraordinary knowledge of history. He
traced society from its crudest origins to the present day, and
asked me to consider the phenomenon of human exploitation,
which ran like a thread through his story. Man-made gods,
priests, kings, presidents, capitalists were all different mani-
festations of a single evil, the will of the powerful few to en-
slave the simple-minded, fundamentally "good" majority. I
ventured to put forward socialism as a corrective for the evils
in the world (whose existence I could not deny) . Mr. Plesch
said he was glad that I mentioned socialism, for many people
of good will had been taken in by its philosophy. The truth
was that socialism negated the essential goodness and probity
of the human spirit even more than capitalism did. "No, my
friend," Mr. Plesch continued, leaning toward me (I ex-
perienced a momentary delicious feeling of equality with my
teacher at being called his friend), "socialism puts an even
greater faith in laws and restrictions than capitalism. An-
archism alone can save the human race. Anarchism alone be-
lieves that people are essentially noble and good. Let me ask
you" (Mr. Plesch obviously valued my opinions!), "do you
require laws to prevent you from stealing, from inflicting
pain, from murder?" I shook my head. "Of course you don't!"
Mr. Plesch went on. "Nor does anyone who is not driven to it
by hunger, or by senseless ambition. Let us dismiss all rulers,
all legislators, all priests. Let everything be free, and no one
will take more than he needs. . . ."

Mrs. Plesch interrupted to say that it was getting late. For
my part, I could have listened all night to Mr. Plesch. But
he said: "Yes, it is late. We must let him go to bed." He went
into the dining-room and came back with a book, which he
put in my hand. "Please read a little in it, and we'll talk about

306 A LOST PARADISE

it in the morning." Mrs. Plesch showed me into a small bed-
room, brightly furnished and looking immaculate. On the bed
lay a long white garment. "One of Tibor's nightshirts," she
said, following my gaze. They said: "Good night," and left,
shutting the door behind them. It was clear that the Plesches
did not sleep in their underwear, and that they assumed that
no one else did. I undressed and donned the nightshirt. It was
too big and too long for me, and I had to laugh when I caught
sight of myself in a wall mirror.

I got into bed and opened the book Mr. Plesch had given
me. Looking Backward was its name. It read like a fairy tale,
except that the characters were real people. The time was
some very distant future, the place Utopia. I began to under-
stand what Mr. Plesch had been only hinting at. For I myself
was exactly the questioning, doubtful person in the book,
familiar only with the materialistic, capitalistic civilization of
the present, and astonished and bewildered by the behavior of
the people in Utopia. Mr. Plesch had spoken of such a future
for the human race in the broadest terms. But the author of
Looking Backward dramatized this future and was painstak-
ingly and delightfully specific. For example, my counterpart
in the book goes into a shop to purchase tobacco for his pipe.
The clerk, genial and polite, brings out a large selection of
tobaccos. The visitor makes his choice and inquires the price.
The clerk is bewildered at the question. There is no price.
There is no such thing as money, though he believes one could
find specimens of it the relics of an ancient barbarous age
in the local museum. One simply takes what one requires. If
one needs shoes, one gets fitted in a shoe store. If one is
hungry, one will find plenty of food in shops and restaurants.

But what does one do in return for this largess, the visitor
from the present-day barbarous world inquires? The answer is
delightfully simple. One works at what one is best fitted to do.
The musician composes or plays and sings, the carpenter
builds houses, the tailor makes clothes. Everyone has what he

Widening Horizons 307

needs. There is, consequently, no such thing as crime, judges,
lawyers, jails, or punishment. There are no laws, none being
required. As for love, it is as free as everything else. Women
here being the equals of men, they no longer need sell them-
selves in marriage in exchange for economic security.

I read until my eyes ached. Reluctantly I put out the gas
and tried to sleep. I had been given a glimpse of a beautiful
new world that had no resemblance to the one I knew. Yet it
was actually a more rational world, certainly one within reach
of well-meaning people. I would dedicate myself, like the
Plesches and their interesting friends, to building such a
world. I must make haste to enlist Hannah and Molly in the
Cause. In my dreams that night I was showing my sisters and
my mother around a beautiful city and taking them into shops
and anticipating with delight their pleased astonishment at
being able to "buy" everything without money.

In the morning I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Plesch,
and they seemed pleased with my enthusiasm for the book.
When we rose from the table, the maid came in and whispered
to Mrs. Plesch. Mrs. Plesch then turned to me and asked me
to accompany her to the room I had slept in. She looked angry
and stern, and I felt a nameless fear as I walked upstairs be-
hind her. Mr. Plesch inquired what was wrong and, getting no
reply, followed us into the room. My bed looked only partly
made, as if the girl had been called away before she could
finish. Mrs. Plesch drew back the covering with a spasmodic
jerk and pointed dramatically at a tiny, red, immobile object
on the sheet. I did not have to look closer. I knew what it was.
Mrs. Plesch wheeled round to me in a fury. "There's never
been a bedbug in this house before," she screamed. "You
brought it!"

I could not believe she was telling the truth. I had never
heard of a house that had no bedbugs. And why should she
accuse me of having brought it? And even if I had unknow-
ingly brought it, why should she create a fuss about it as if I

308 A LOST PARADISE

had committed a crime! At the same time I felt ashamed before
Mr. Plesch. Mr. Plesch was regarding me with compassion
and murmuring: "Please, dear, stop this. You are being unjust,
dear . . . don't, please!" Mr. Plesch was kind, but he ap-
peared to share his wife's horror at the presence of a single
bedbug on the bed. I burst into tears and sobbed that I wished
to go home.

Mr. Plesch led me downstairs and took me for a long walk
out in the country. He begged me not to take his wife's out-
burst too seriously. He explained that she was scrupulously
clean and took pride in her house. He told me that I must for-
get the incident, as he was certain Mrs. Plesch eventually
would. When we returned to the house, he closeted himself
with his wife, while I sat dejected and nervous in the living-
room, not feeling guilty, yet wondering whether I had been
too complacent about the presence of vermin. At last Mrs.
Plesch came downstairs and told me that she hadn't meant to
hurt me, but that one couldn't be too careful or one would be
quickly overrun. I took my lesson and was persuaded to re-
main for lunch; but my pleasure in being in the house had
evaporated.

I left Bay Ridge in the early afternoon. My indignation
(and secret shame) grew with the journey back, and I arrived
home desperately unhappy. I hated Mrs. Plesch for her in-
sensitiveness, but in relating the story at home I spoke pas-
sionately and resentfully of having to live in poverty and un~
cleanliness, thus in effect blaming my mother for the mis-
fortune that had overtaken me that morning. If my mother
understood the wicked implication of my hysterical outburst,
she gave no sign. Instead, she lashed out at Mrs. Plesch,
apostrophizing her scornfully as a Bay Ridge "all-right-
nick" who pretends to faint at the sight of a bedbug a single
bedbug! She thought that was putting on airs with a venge-
ance. No one, of course, 'wants bedbugs. But to scream and
shout and insult innocent guests (my mother called attention

Widening Horizons 309

to the fact that for once I had gone to Bay Ridge as clean as a
whistle) because of one little bug was just a calculated ex-
hibition of snobbery. I had not transported the bug of that
she was sure. But if I had, she was glad of it.

In this fashion my mother went on until her anger was
played out. Yet the incident was not without its effect on her.
She engaged more frequently in housecleaning. I would find
my underwear and socks removed after a single week's wear
and fresh things substituted. And before my departure for
Bay Ridge on Saturdays she would give me a last-minute
going-over with an extra-coarse clothesbrush.

In music Mr. Plesch steered me in conservative directions.
My fingers having been strengthened by the Pischnas, little
and big, and my sense of musical form stimulated by the classi-
cal examples of dementi and Kuhlau, I was given next the
Inventions of J. S. Bach. Mr. Plesch explained to me the im-
portance and influence of counterpoint and fugue in the de-
velopment of music. The Inventions were finger-breaking;
but when I had mastered them, I found in them an unusual
pleasure, a satisfaction that I could not relate to the world
and its pleasures and woes. They seemed pleasurable for
themselves alone, like Hannah's baby or the brook near Mr.
Plesch's house in Bay Ridge.

Mr. Plesch could not, when I asked him, explain to me the
meaning of the Inventions, as he could explain, for example,
the "Pathetique" of Beethoven. His explanation of the sonata
was complete in its symbolism, and flattering to me because
it made clear my own secret conception of what I thought
Beethoven had meant to convey. Mr. Plesch identified the
second theme of the first movement as a dispute between a
male and female principle, and I eagerly concurred, for I had
thought along the same lines. The adagio, nobly sad, needed
no explanation. But except for its prevailing minor cast, the
rondo would have left me at a loss to explain so indecisive a
resolution of the battle proclaimed in the first movement. Mr.

310 A LOST PARADISE

Plesch "explained" the rondo as the decision of the composer
not to resolve the battle, to let the issues hang, so to speak, in
the air. This seemed strange for a composer so generally
positive as Beethoven was. But Mr. Plesch said that I would
find no end of positive resolution in Beethoven's later works
when I got to them. Indeed, I discovered sooner than I ex-
pected how positive Beethoven could be.

To save car fare, I sometimes walked home from the Eng-
lish lessons I gave downtown. One night, passing Cooper
Union, on Eighth Street and the Bowery, I saw on a poster on
the building an announcement by "The People's Symphony
Society" of a concert for the following night. The program
featured Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The price of admission
was ten cents. This was something I was now able on rare oc-
casions to afford. I invited Hannah to accompany me, and the
next evening we took the Madison Avenue streetcar (Hannah
paid the fare) and got off at Eighth Street. The concert hall
was in the basement of Cooper Union. On the stage sat a
large number of instrumentalists clad in white tie and tails.
They were tuning up extravagantly and testing their instru-
ments with scales and arpeggios and bits of melody, each
player intent on himself and quite ignoring the efforts of his
colleagues. The hall resounded with a fascinating conglomera-
tion of sounds. When the conductor emerged from some-
where in the rear, the great disharmony ceased suddenly, as if
by magic. The conductor, a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man
dressed like his players, waited awhile as if for inspiration.
Then his stick descended with force, and I was engulfed in
the opening movement of the Fifth Symphony.

This was a battle indeed! Compared with it the syncopated
turbulence of the "Pathetique" seemed small in scale and lack-
ing power. I became aware of a similarity in form in the first
movements of both. But I was hardly prepared for the relent-
less insistence of the bold, naked motto from the beginning
to the end of the movement. Not for one moment did the on-

Widening Horizons 3 1 1

slaught on my ears, on my nerves, and on my intellect and
my imagination waver, not even during the brief, hopeless,
futile "gesture" of a lonely oboe cadenza, upon which the
orchestra suddenly fell, tooth and nail.

The end left me in a state of epic disturbance and with the
feeling that I should never again be at peace. But a moment
later the cellos began the andante and I was suddenly at
peace. I remembered a sentence in the Bible: "Is there no
balm in Gilead?" The furtive scherzo, with its elephantine
interlude by the basses, set me on edge again, for during its
course there came at first secret tappings of the fateful motive
of the first movement, later obtruding brashly with almost
joyful insolence. I felt that anything could happen, that some-
thing tremendous was brewing. Then out of an eerie silence
created by the soft, rhythmic tap of a kettledrum there arose a
fast-gathering crescendo, like the rapid inflation of a tiny
storm-cloud, like a genie swiftly released from a bottle, and
trumpets rent the air with brassy exultation. I recalled Mr.
Plesch's prophecy. No music could be more "resolved" than
the finale of the Fifth Symphony, and this grand revelation of
the power and scope of music compelled me to revalue every-
thing in music I had liked heretofore.

I told Mr. Plesch about my memorable experience in
Cooper Union, thanked him for having planted the seeds of
my conversion to Beethoven, and hinted at my loss of interest
in all other composers. He agreed with me about Beethoven's
unique position in music, but he would not go along in out-
lawing the other, for him, "important" composers. And he
told me with a friendly smile that I was in a transitional stage,
and that I might experience still another change of faith when
I came to know the great music dramas of Wagner and the
tone poems of Richard Strauss. In the light of Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony I could not but be skeptical about the possi-
bility of transferring my allegiance to the two later com-
posers. My business now, however, was to find out all I could

312 A LOST PARADISE

about Beethoven and his music. In this Mr. Plesch helped me
out. We played together four-hand arrangements of all the
symphonies and the overtures. And I set myself to learn those
sonatas which were within my technical reach, and one, the
"Appassionata" (for its name), which wasn't. It was at this
point in our relationship that Mr. Plesch, through kindness and
affection and, I believe, sympathy for my musical awakening
and juvenile daring, made the great error of indulging me in my
desire to reach into certain compositions regardless of their
technical and interpretive difficulties. And so I swept through
the "Appassionato" with tremendous fervor but lagging
fingers and aching wrists and Mr. Plesch did not chide me.
I was, in effect, resurrecting the old "Freedom method,"
now less brash in its pretensions because of certain technical
benefits I had gained from the discipline of the two Pischnas.

My introduction to Wagner came unexpectedly. To cele-
brate the payment of a new installment on her husband's "big
job" Hannah took me one Saturday night to the Metropolitan
Opera House. Saturday-night performances were given at
popular prices, and general admission to the gallery was fifty
cents. Around four in the afternoon we joined a queue that
already stretched from Fortieth Street halfway around the
opera house on Seventh Avenue. At seven thirty the doors
opened and Hannah and I raced up endless flights of stairs to
the very top of the theater. We were already too late to be
among the first-row standees. We made our way, however, to
a place near an aisle, directly overlooking the orchestra pit.
By stepping out in the aisle when the usher wasn't looking, I
could see everything in the theater.

Its size and lavish beauty took my breath away. The two
tiers of boxes, with their damask-red interiors, the immense
orchestra floor, fanning out in raised platforms on either side,
the dizzy height from my position to the floor five stories be-
low, the great lighting fixture depending from the ceiling, the

Widening Horizons 3 1 3

deep gold curtain hanging in graceful, generous folds, and,
above all, the vast orchestra pit, into which an endless stream
of musicians was now filing I hardly knew where to look.
I heard the same sounds of tuning-up I had heard in Cooper
Union. Yet these sounds were different, rarefied as if through
the alembic of the great upward distance they traveled to
reach my ear. From that distance, too, the instrumentalists
looked like an assembly of tiny animated mannikins.

When the lights went out in the theater, the orchestra pit
remained illuminated, and a string of red, white, and blue
electric bulbs stretching across the front of the stage (I could
see them) threw a ravishing warm glow on the curtain. The
conductor appeared and climbed onto a high chair in front of
the players. A hush fell over the house, and the warm glow on
the curtain changed to a bleak gray. In a whisper I had time to
ask a man in front of me what the opera was and he whispered
back: "Die Walkure Wagner."

From the pit rose music like the patter of rain a rhythmic
patter, tense and malevolent. It grew steadily in volume, and
suddenly there were rhythmic crashes of thunder and I heard
lightning. Then the curtain rose on a rude hut. A large tree
trunk stood in the middle of the room, which was lit up by a
flickering fire on a great hearth at the extreme left. I could not
see the whole stage from where I stood; but now and again I
stepped out into the aisle, stooped down, and caught fleeting
glimpses of the scene and the personages in it. I heard every-
thing, however, though I understood nothing except that the
music and the action were on the grandest scale imaginable.
In the second act there took place, amid the sound and sight of
thunder and lightning, an epic duel on a high crag, the com-
batants bathed in a red light. And in the final act dazzling
maidens in shimmering armor and feathered helmets ran about
the stage brandishing long spears, shouting war-cries in mas-
sive harmony spurred on and abetted by an orchestra that

314 A LOST PARADISE

neighed and snorted and whinnied and emitted brassy yelps so
real, grandiose, and powerful as to wipe out my memories of
the finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

All through the opera there came long stretches of inaction
on the stage. During these I abandoned my efforts to obtain a
view of the scene and gave all my attention to the extraordi-
nary sounds from the orchestra. But toward the last a hissing
effect as of the escape of steam alerted me to the stage. Cran-
ing my neck into the aisle, I saw little flames springing up all
around the stage (I remembered the forest fire on the stage of
Poll's Theater in The Ninety and Nine). Then the orchestra,
having crackled and hissed and spat for many preliminary
measures, broke into a melodic vizualization of a self-con-
tained, many-hued conflagration at the very same time that the
fire on the stage assembled its scattered forces and coalesced
in a solid ring around a crag on which the chief of the warrior
maidens lay as in sleep!

Early on the following Monday I went to the library and
took home with me a book on the stories of Wagner's music
dramas, and I learned in detail about Siegmund and Sieglinde,
Hunding, Wotan, and the Valkyries. Knowing this necessi-
tated learning the tale of the Nibelungs from the beginning.
Indeed, in a few hours I knew the plots of all the Wagner
operas from Rienzi to Parsifal. Notwithstanding my instant
absorption in the imagery and plots of the stories, it was their
ethical and moral implications that raised them above any-
thing I had encountered in books. And the vivid memory of
the music of Die Walkure enveloped these implications in a
throbbing dramatic light.

Here was a world of music that dealt not in abstract ethical
concepts, but in men and women and their tremendous prob-
lems in life! These personages were of grand proportions, yet
I could relate them, through the music, to myself and the
people I knew. The good and the evil they embodied were out
of proportion to the good and evil I knew, yet fundamentally

Widening Horizons 3 1 5

they were the same. What else, for example, was the Ring the
Nibelungs stole from the Rhine Maidens but the very thing
that Hannah once called "that dreadful metal," the pursuit of
which embittered the lives of the innocent and good and drove
the weak and greedy to cruelty, Injustice, and crime.

The battle between good and evil was clearly the basic
theme of all the Wagner music dramas. But more important
to me was the hidden weakness in most of Wagner's heroes.
Though they were all high-minded and generous (like my-
self), they were (also like myself) a prey to temptation. With
the exception of Lohengrin, who belonged to the heavens and
was above the battle, the heroes were all only myself on a
grand scale! Tannhauser, especially, seemed like a portrait of
me. Though I had never met Venus, she was a reality for me,
and her image sometimes stood in the way of the life I longed
to dedicate to art and the love of a pure woman. The dallying
In the Venusberg made corporeal a situation I often confusedly
Imagined. Flow did it come about that Wagner understood so
well my nature and its problems? But of course it was really
himself he understood and expressed in poetry and in music.
In so doing, he understood and expressed sensitive souls like
myself.

That there were pure and noble women In the world I knew
at first hand. But that they existed for the redemption and
solace of vacillating, erring (albeit essentially noble) men was
a discovery I owed to Wagner. Except for Elsa, who faltered
In her loyalty, the others were not only entirely dedicated to
the men they loved, but they loved only men who required
salvation. Elisabeth should have loved the pure and noble
Wolfram, and a lesser artist than Wagner would have so ar-
ranged it. But Wagner knew that the Wolframs of the world
were morally self-sufficient they did not need salvation, as
Tannhauser and I and (I presumed) Wagner himself needed it.

Notwithstanding her imperious pride, her tantrums, her
will to destruction, I counted Isolde a pure and single-minded

316 A LOST PARADISE

woman. She was indeed, in a way, a more complete woman than
Elisabeth, perhaps on account of those realistic traits she
stormily exhibits in the first act, that touch of Venus in her,
which at first made me hesitate to place her beside Wagner's
immaculately good heroines. She soon became, though secretly,
my favorite Wagnerian woman (I felt that her utter self-
abnegation and tenderness in the second and third acts ab-
solved her of her first-act weaknesses and her later deception
of King Mark) . So completely, in fact, that in contemplat-
ing her mentally, I quite forgot what I considered the main-
spring of my existence the pursuit of art. And I understood
that the death of Tristan was no accident of dueling, Isolde's
"Love-Death" no consequence of heartbreak. Tristan and
Isolde simply could not expose their searing, utterly exclusive
passion for each other to an everyday world. There was no
place in the world for such a love. Death, I agreed with
Wagner, was their only possible future.

Mr. Plesch received my new enthusiasm for Wagner with
pleasure, but again refused to abet me in outlawing all other
composers, reminding me of the existence and eminence of
Richard Strauss, whose works I had yet to know. Would I, he
inquired, be inclined to throw Wagner overboard when I got
to know and admire Strauss? I could not imagine such a thing.
"Well, then," Mr. Plesch counseled, "don't be hasty. Cherish
all great men, though I have nothing against your having a
favorite." Mr. Plesch then lent me his volume of Liszt's
Wagner transcriptions for the piano.

In my eagerness to learn Isolde's "Love-Death" I began to
neglect my regular technical studies and the suites of Bach, on
which I had only recently embarked. Mr. Plesch, protesting
mildly, let me have my way. From Mr. Katz I purchased the
vocal score of Tristan on the usual long-term arrangement.
From the library I took home every book by Wagner or re-
lating to him. The music of Wagner, his life, his ideals, even
his polemics I read Judaism, in Music without distaste (how

Widening Horizons 317

could Wagner be wrong?) now filled my life. And to my
astonishment and delight, Bernard Shaw's The Perfect Wag-
nerite officially identified the Ring dramas with the philosophy
of socialism. This made Wagner complete from every angle,
and all other composers superfluous.

I walked the streets as if on air. And my behavior at home
reflected my consciousness of having finally matured, of hav-
ing found at last the right key to art. This time I did not even
wish to explore my new enthusiasm with Hannah or Molly.
How could I convey to anyone except a perceptive musician
and humanitarian philosopher like Mr. Plesch (who of course
already knew it) the stature of Richard Wagner as artist and
seer? I believe I comported myself at home and in the houses
of friends with the air of one who was privileged to know
something of great consequence, the esoteric complexity of
which prevented him from sharing it with anyone not endowed
by nature with special faculties to comprehend it. I was very
happy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Paradise of the Rich

i

-N KATZ'S music store one day I was introduced to
I. Jacobs. L Jacobs was well known on the East Side as a
promising young pianist and teacher. The I stood for Israel,
but he preferred to be called I. Jacobs, and even had cards
printed with the initial for a first name. It was rumored that
I. Jacobs contemplated giving a formal debut recital at
Mendelssohn Hall the following year. People spoke of his
good looks, his charm of manner, and his attraction for
women. These reports seemed to be well founded. I. Jacobs
was a handsome man of about seventeen, tall and rather plump,
with a round face, blue eyes, a sharp nose, and delicate skin.
His hair was blond and wavy, curled up at the ends and
combed pompadour fashion. His hands were small, his fingers
short and pudgy. His hand-clasp was warm, and his manner so
friendly with a stranger like myself that I fell under his re-
puted spell at once.

A Paradise of the Rich 3 19

I had never met a man so at ease and at the same time con-
descending, but condescending in a charming, inoffensive,
generous way. He talked about music and the problems of the
piano, and illustrated some technical points he was making
with a nonchalance that I found captivating and greatly
envied. I felt I was in the presence of both an artist and a man
of the world. And the accuracy of his fingerwork in the
snatches he played brought home to me my own inadequacy
in that department. I watched him with awe; and I thought he
resembled Lord Byron (a patrician poet, handsome, generous,
and condescending, whose biography I had read) or, better
still, Steerforth! So Steerforth must have appeared to the ad-
miring gaze of David Copperfield. I could well understand
that women found I. Jacobs irresistible.

We left the store together and walked up East Broadway.
In the course of conversation I. Jacobs mentioned that he
spent his summers in the Catskill Mountains at the Grand
View Hotel on Kiamesha Lake. In return for playing the
piano an hour or so each evening, he received board and lodg-
ing and a handsome weekly stipend, the size of which he did
not divulge. It was, he said, the pleasantest way of going on
vacation, and he advised me to do the same. Of course, his was
an unusual job. He played solos only (there was a special band
for dancing) . But that was because the Grand View was the
most expensive hotel on the lake and he was a particular friend
of the proprietor's wife. The less expensive hotels engaged a
violinist and a pianist who played for both entertainment and
dancing. The violinist Rashkin, who was a friend of his
(Rashkin was an esteemed virtuoso on the East Side), had the
job at the Cedar View Hotel, a short distance from the Grand
View; and Jacobs would be pleased to recommend me to him
as pianist. I wondered aloud at his wishing to recommend me
without hearing me play. I. Jacobs said that he had heard
about my playing from Mr. Katz, and what was good enough
for Mr. Katz was good enough for him. I was melted by his

32O A LOST PARADISE

kindness and trust in me, and I hardly knew how to express
my gratitude. At his request I gave him my address, which he
noted down on one of his professional cards extracted from a
brown leather wallet, and I left him at the stoop of a fine three-
story brick house, near Gouverneur Street, where he resided
on the second floor in an apartment that ran the entire length
of the house! A brass plaque on the outside of the house an-
nounced: "I. Jacobs, pianist and teacher."

I dared not hope that a job in the Catskills would ma-
terialize from a chance meeting with this amiable and humane
artist. But I. Jacobs was as good as his word. A few days later
I was summoned by letter to Mr, Rashkin's house on Jeffer-
son Street for an interview. The letter threw our house into a
turmoil. It marked, in a way, my acceptance by the world as a
professional musician, and confounded my father's doggedly
held belief that music, however ornamental an accomplish-
ment, could not offer a serious, lucrative way of life. It
promised an easement of the summer slack, which was now
upon us with full force. But it also brought up the alarming
consequence of my having to be separated from my family for
the first time in my life. I wondered how I would endure such
a parting. At the same time I was eager to see the fabled
Catskills and the renowned Kiamesha Lake, where only rich
people might sojourn, and to play for their delectation.

Though I knew Mr. Rashkin by reputation, I had never
seen him. He lived in a basement apartment, and a plaque on
the door read: "Sol Rashkin, violin virtuoso and teacher." I
was somewhat taken aback by his looks and speech, neither of
which was of the superior kind I had expected in a violin
virtuoso. Sol Rashkin was short and eel-like, with a swarthy
yellow face and coarse hair. He looked about twenty, but I
knew he was not more than seventeen. I could see he was
obliged to shave often, for his chin and the sides of his face al-
most to the eyes and his upper lip showed up bluish over the
basic yellow of his skin. He was startlingly hirsute. Hair grew

A Paradise of the Rich 321

wherever it could, on the back of his hands, in his nostrils and
ears, and low down on his forehead. A coarse, curly strand of
hair protruded from an opening in his shirt where a button
was missing. His voice was truculently husky, and he spoke
without refinement. I could not help comparing him with
I. Jacobs, whose appearance and speech bespoke the musician
and gentleman. Could this be the Sol Rashkin whose tone on
the violin was (I'd heard) of melting sweetness, and whose
mournful double-stops in Zigeuneriveisen, his showpiece,
clutched at one's heartstrings!

Rashkin asked me if I had played summer jobs before. I
said I hadn't. He then wanted to know if I read well at sight,
and I replied that I did (as I believed), but he did not ask me
to play. The pay, he said, was six dollars a week. Laundry
would be my only expense the management stipulated a
change of shirt three times a week. I was to meet Sol at the
Courtland Street ferry the following Monday at eight in the
morning. The interview over, I wondered if I might ask him to
play. But his matter-of-fact references to music seemed to
imply a strictly commercial consideration of art, and I
refrained from asking him. I left with the impression that he
was not the man to play the violin for pleasure alone.

The news of my summer engagement was greeted at home
with a mixture of pleasure and sadness and a burst of activity
from my mother. I was in need of an outfit to meet the
sartorial standards of the Playground of the Rich. Our
finances, however, were, at the moment, at their lowest ebb
since we had left Waterbury, and my mother's resourceful-
ness was severly taxed to negotiate a loan. First she outlined a
possible wardrobe. This included a lightweight dark-blue
suit for formal occasions, two extra pairs of socks (I already
owned two), four shirts (I owned two), four starched collars,
and half a dozen handkerchiefs (I owned three) . This array,
apart from the suit, was necessitated by the Cedar View
management's exaggerated laundry-mindedness.

322 A LOST PARADISE

On sober second thought, the new suit was abandoned as an
extravagance, as the jacket of my old blue suit was in fair
condition, though the pants were shiny (at night, when I
should wear them, the pants would shine less brazenly) . In-
stead, a pair of white pants was substituted as constituting,
with a dark-blue jacket, the more stylish outfit for formal
evening wear. The cost might be around six dollars. Hannah
would have gladly raised with her ring more than the needed
sum, but the "stone" was "out" just then, having relieved a
friend from a threatened eviction. Every suggestion from
Molly or rne of a source for borrowing the money was vetoed
by my mother as one she had only recently tapped. But the
next morning my mother returned from the grocery store
downstairs with a load of provisions and six dollars! The
grocer had not even been mentioned by us, as being quite out-
side the bounds of possibility. Yet my mother had talked
him into lending her the money, though he had filled an entire
notebook with sums we had owed him for over a month!
I could only guess at the exaggerated story she told him about
my summer prospects; for he greeted me, when he next saw
me, with unwonted deference, and said he hoped I would
return in the fall a rich and celebrated artist.

The day before my departure was a scorcher, hardly to be
borne. It was even too hot to practice. But my mother, after
finishing her household work late in the evening, mended my
old shirts, socks, and underwear and set them to boil in a tin
basin on the stove. I sat on the stoop talking with Molly until
my mother had hung the wash on the clothesline. Then, red-
faced and perspiring, she summoned us to bed. Long before I
rose next morning, she had ironed my things and packed them
in an old, unsteady valise. She was unusually silent and went
about her work studiously avoiding looking at me. I, for my
part, watched her with emotion. As the time approached for
my leaving, I grew panicky, and considered, for a wild
moment, canceling the trip.

A Paradise of the Rich 323

Hannah came down to bid me good-by. Molly, who had
little control over herself, broke into sobs. I felt my heart
aching unbearably with love for these three, and even for my
father, who left his breakfast unfinished and hovered self-
consciously in the background. But my mother kept doggedly
busy and aggressively dry-eyed. At a certain moment every-
thing seemed ready. My mother glanced at the small round
tin clock that stood on the window ledge in the kitchen.
"Finished," she exclaimed, tying a string around a paper
bag in which she had packed my lunch of hard-boiled eggs,
rolls, a tomato, and some salt In a tiny paper cone. I felt I
must leave the house at once or I would break down. Hannah
and Molly saw me off on the streetcar at the corner. I looked
back at our window for a final glimpse of my mother. Only
my father was there, waving his colored handkerchief in my
direction.

The Cedar View Hotel was a large, sprawling wooden
structure, three stories high, with a wide veranda halfway
around the ground floor. Sol Rashkin and I were given a
narrow, elongated room on the third floor. A small window
offered a breath-taking view of a lake and great mountains
in the not too far distance. On the four-hour train journey I
had given myself up to feelings of loneliness and yearning for
home, and had been obliged several times to seek refuge in the
toilet to vomit or to cry. But when I looked out from our
bedroom window at the panorama before me, I forgot, for the
moment, my home and my family. The air was so clean that
the pines on the side of the mountains stood out solid in dark
velvet-green. They seemed so near to me that I thought a
leap from the window would set me down in their midst.
The lake, too, pellucid and emerald-green, seemed within
hand-reach, though I knew it to be several hundred yards
away. Some people were rowing boats, and I thought I could
even make out their features. I had never imagined any part of
the world to be so lovely.

324 A LOST PARADISE

Sol was either too familiar with the scene or congenitally
indifferent to lakes and mountains, for he busied himself
unpacking his valise and hanging up his clothes on pegs
screwed into the wall, never once looking out the window.
Besides a bed and two chairs, the room held a tin washstand
with a pitcher and bowl. Two shelves on a wall served as a
dresser. When we had disposed our things and shoved our
valises under the bed, Sol took his violin case and his music
and we went down into the dining-room to rehearse. It was
late afternoon, and waiters and waitresses were setting the
tables for dinner. I sat down at the upright piano with trep-
idation, never having accompanied anyone before.

Sol warmed up with a few scales and passages, which he
tossed off with terrifying confidence and ease. I struck a few
chords tentatively, but my fingers were cold, though the
dining-room was oppressively warm. "Let's try Zigeuner-
weisen" Sol commanded. I picked out the music and placed it
on the rack. It began with a few introductory solo bars for the
piano. My hands trembled as I played. A moment later Sol
came in with the same theme. The rich sound of his tone and
the sureness and boldness of his fingers and bow were in star-
tling contrast with the sound of the tinny piano and my uncer-
tain playing. I counted four in a bar under my breath, so that I
might not rush forward or lag behind the violin. But to my
discomfiture Sol played freely, paying no heed to the direc-
tions in the score. His style was improvisational, as if he
thought up the music as he played. His throbbing tone and
arrogantly erratic phrasing gave to his performance the stamp
of authenticity.

I accompanied him with difficulty. I could not anticipate
the vagaries of his tempi and phrasing. Repeatedly he upset
my calculations and did something I was not expecting. Several
times I was hopelessly lost, and Sol stopped playing and said
huskily: u Let's take that again." And there was that in his
voice which warned me that he was impatient and displeased,

A Paradise of the Rich 325

and which In turn unnerved me so that I lost control of my
fingers and my wits. The rehearsal was abruptly terminated.
Sol stopped in the middle of a phrase, put his violin in its case,
and, muttering obscenities, strode from the room. I gave way
to tears. Yet I could not blame Sol, and I remained in the
dining-room till near supper time, practicing my part of
Zigeuneriveisen and some other pieces that Sol intended to
play that evening.

At half past six Sol came into the room carrying his violin
case. He tuned perfunctorily while a waiter opened the
double doors of the dining-room. We struck up the Double
Eagle March. At the first notes, a horde of guests streamed in
and hastily made for their tables. By the time we had played
the march half through, the room was full of chattering men,
women, and children. Even the strong tone of the violin was
unable to penetrate the din, and before we had come to the
end of the piece Sol motioned me to stop. Waiters came
running in bearing large platters of salted herring cut in big
chunks, great bowls of vapor-breathing, extra-large boiled
potatoes, immense heaps of large, aromatic sliced onions,
young scallions with tender white bulbs and maturer scallions
with large, graying, peeling heads. Into wicker baskets on the
tables they dumped fat slices of rye bread thick with caraway
seeds, and chunks of chaleh which had been torn out by hand.

Though the march had gone rather well, the piano part
being only a succession of chords, I was grateful for the
respite, and divided the time between going over mentally the
tricky places in Zigeuner^oeisen and envying the clamorous and
enthusiastic diners. Sol thought it would be useless to resume
playing before the guests had been somewhat appeased by the
seemingly inexhaustible succession of appetizers that kept
arriving from the kitchen. He said the advent of soup would
be our signal. And at the appearance of the huge tureens we
played a Polish piece, Krako'wiak. The din had by now sub-
sided and Krakoivictk was audible, though it had an added

326 A LOST PARADISE

accompaniment In the sound of a mass intake of soup. It was
not until the arrival of the double dessert of stewed prunes
and watermelon that Sol pointed his bow at the music of
Zigeunerweisen .

He had chosen the proper moment for this powerful num-
ber. The diners were now tired out and in a semi-comatose or,
perhaps, a reflective condition. The moment I sounded the
introduction, there was absolute quiet in the room. I played
with more confidence than at our rehearsal. Indeed, I was
about to give myself up to the enjoyment of Sol's sensuous
tone when he suddenly hurried the repetition of a phrase that
he had formerly taken quite slowly, and I found myself a bar
or so behind him. Sol moved closer to me and began pointedly
accenting some notes in the hope that this would help me find
my place. But his proximity only aggravated my nervousness,
and for a while we were distressingly at odds. At the height
of my panic the violin broke off and I stopped automatically.
I turned around anxiously to Sol for directions, but he was
looking at the crowded tables. Pointing his bow backward at
me, he demanded throatily: "What's the son of a bitch do-
ing?" I was overwhelmed with shame, and I wheeled back to
the piano for refuge. "From beginning!" Sol commanded.
With tear-dimmed eyes I began the introduction again. This
time Sol curbed his penchant for musical license, and the piece
went off without serious mishap on my part, and elicited
great applause.

Thereafter I took care to learn all violin as well as piano
parts of Sol's repertoire; and Sol, who did not like to rehearse,
thought it wiser to go over the pieces frequently with me.
These rehearsals were sad events, though I recognized the
need for them. Sol's sarcasm was biting, and his use of
profanity (I had not heard such words since my street-gang
days, when I, too, used them, but without realizing their
meaning) shocking. Afterwards I would run to my room and
seek and find solace in the volume of Shelley which Mr.

A Paradise of the Rich 327

Plesch had given me on my birthday. The book contained a
portrait of the poet. I gazed often at the sparse, feminine,
delicate features, so different from Sol's swarthy, vulgar
face and ferret-like eyes. Yet when he played, Sol, too, was a
poet. I was disturbed by an inconsistency so glaring. I
deplored the apparently haphazard way In which nature
scattered its endowments. Why was not I, whose face, as I
saw it reflected in a mirror, was delicate and spiritual (though
not so incandescent as Shelley's), outfitted at birth with the
genius and the power of a Shelley or a Sol Rashkin to move
men's hearts?

For consolation and advice I walked over in the afternoons
to visit I. Jacobs at the Grand View Hotel. I refrained, of
course, from telling him about my disappointment in the
character of Sol Rashkin. But I did confess the handicap of my
Inexperience as an accompanist. I. Jacobs understood, and was
touchingly sympathetic. He undertook to show me what he
referred to as the "tricks of the trade." These, he assured me,
were well known among professionals and practiced by the
best pianists, himself included. The "tricks" were, In effect,
simplifications of difficulties, to be employed In certain
contingencies, such as excessive nervousness, mental depres-
sion, or physical Indisposition.

"For example," I. Jacobs said, seating himself at the piano
to illustrate, "you see in your piano part a long, difficult
technical passage. Perhaps you haven't practiced it, or if you
have you suddenly feel nervous about it and know you will not
do It justice. So you look at the passage harmonically and you
see that It is all in, let us say, C major. Well, you certainly can
play, for instance, arpeggios in C major, can't you? So you
make a fast decision, forget all about the passage as it is
written, and play instead a series of C major arpeggios. Now,
supposing that you are even too nervous to play arpeggios. In
that case, forget about them and play C major chords instead.
Since the harmony is all right, there is no harm done. No one

328 A LOST PARADISE

(except the person you are playing with) will be the wiser,"
He added: "But whatever you do, do it with confidence.
Confidence is half the game." And, indeed, he himself was the
personification of that attitude. If confidence were contagious,
I should have returned from my visits with I. Jacobs the
boldest of pianists. But whatever optimism I rubbed off from
I. Jacobs, Sol Rashkin speedily erased, 1 found that only hard
practice could provide me with the stamina essential to a
musical collaboration with Sol Rashkin. It was only many
years later, when I collaborated with more humane, far
greater artists than Sol Rashkin, that I was able, in critical
moments, to employ some of the tricks I. Jacobs so generously
taught me.

Even more searing to my sensibilities than his cavalier and
unfeeling treatment of me was Sol's unromantic, indeed las-
civious approach to women. He was often late in going to bed.
I would be awakened by his lighting the gas-jet and the noise
he made in undressing. And as I turned, now wide-eyed, to
the wall, pretending to be asleep, he would spell out the
details of the night's adventure. The musician who only a few
hours earlier had filled my heart with pure feelings of joy and
tenderness now described his sordid conquests with depraved
relish. I was relieved to find that his paramours were Polish
and Irish chambermaids. I could not bear to think that Jewish
girls could succumb to his coarse blandishments.

He derided everything I cherished, and took delight in
shocking me with obscene jokes and stories. I kept to myself
when we were not playing together, so as to avoid his con-
fidences. One of the guests, a young girl, delicate and pretty,
and generally silent, smiled at me one evening as she left the
dining-room with her parents. I had noticed her before, and
her beauty and modesty brought vividly before me the figure
of Elsa von Brabant in Lohengrin. I decided to love her, though
she should never guess my passion. Indeed, she looked so

A Paradise of the Rich 329

fragile that I could not imagine her loving any man in an
earthy sense. And when she gave me a passing smile, I felt
that it was more than I could hope for or deserved. To my
horror Sol caught the smile and saw my ecstatic face. He
followed her out of the room with an appraising eye. "I
suppose you like that kind of thing," he remarked with a
sneer. 'Thin as a rail nothing anywhere" and he made all
too vivid gestures with his hands. I turned away and weakly
said: "I don't know whom you mean."

The intensity of my love grew hourly. I caught glimpses
of her in the dining-room, rocking on the porch, or sitting on
the lawns. I walked in the pine woods hoping that I would
encounter her and that she would notice me and smile again;
or I sprawled on the grass, pretending to be absorbed in my
volume of Shelley and praying that she might pass by and ask
me what I was reading and I would tell her about my favorite
poet and read her The Sensitive Plant (which she so resembled)
or "I arise from dreams of thee," and so convey obliquely my
love and my torment! But she never came close enough, and I
had to content myself with watching her slim figure from a
distance.

When I lay down in bed at night, I would invoke her
image and say to her: "You will stand before me the whole
night through, and when I arise it will be from 'dreams of
thee.' " And every night she stood in front of me the moment
I shut my eyes, and in the morning I awoke with thoughts of
her only, as if I had not slept at all. Sometimes from my win-
dow I would see her walking toward the lake, as if she had
only just left my dream and emerged into the reality of
mountain air and sun-reflecting water. All this Sol never
suspected. Nor could he have understood it if he had.

One late afternoon, an hour before supper, when the guests
either had not returned from walks or mountain-climbing or
were napping or preparing themselves for the evening meal,

330 A LOST PARADISE

I went down to the lake, got into a rowboat, and idly rowed
close to the shore, watching the cloudless, darkening sky and
absorbing the gray quiet. Then I became aware of a figure
coming down the path from the hotel, and my heart stopped
beating. It was she. Not a soul else was about.

She walked as if in thought, with her eyes on the ground,
and saw me only when she reached the water's edge. She was
dressed for the evening in a pale-blue silk dress, and she
looked touchingly slight and insubstantial. When she saw me,
I was a few feet from the water's edge. She stood quietly, and
her eyes left mine and rested on the far mountains. For a
while everything looked transfixed, as if absolutely nothing
was occurring, not even time. Then I felt a new and strange
emotion. I was seized by courage. "Would you," I called out
suddenly and boldly, a care to go for a row?" She said: "Yes,"
distinctly. I rowed to the shore, close to where she stood. I let
go the oars and, leaning forward, stretched out my right hand,
which she took. I permitted myself a momentary awareness
of her touch (this feeling I instantly laid aside as something to
examine in detail and savor at some other, less crucial time) .
She placed one foot in the boat. But as she did so, the boat
moved lightly away. Before she could put her other foot into
the boat, the distance between us widened. Instead of releasing
her hand, I held it tightly, expecting to draw her into the
boat. This did not happen. As the boat drifted silently away,
her legs separated alarmingly. I still clung to the hope that
she would, at the final moment, make the leap. Then a sudden
movement of the boat tore our hands apart and she fell like an
open pair of scissors into the lake.

I sat in the drifting boat quite drained of all feeling. Like a
disinterested spectator, I watched her submerge and rise,
scramble up the bank, and stand there irresolutely, dripping
and disheveled, her silk dress clinging to and outlining her
body. The sight of the figure, grotesque, unromantic, even

A Paradise of the Rich 3 3 1

comical, brought back my senses and my will, and I seized
the oars and hastily made for the shore. But by then she was
running toward the hotel, and when I tied up the boat to the
dock she was nowhere in sight.

She did not come down to supper. When I got into bed I
went through my accustomed ritual and summoned her
image to appear to me. But the only image I could evoke was
the pitiful, ludicrous one I had last seen. I brooded during
most of the night over the stupidity, the enormity of my
behavior, and wondered how I could ever face her.

But I was destined never to see her again. For the very next
day, just before lunch, Sol was summoned to the manager's
office, accused of improper behavior toward a female guest,
and told that we must leave at once. Sol called the manager
names and invited him out on the lawn to fight, a summons
that the manager, unfortunately for himself, accepted. I
watched the battle from the window of my room. The mana-
ger, though plucky, was no match for Sol, who felled him
with a blow and left him senseless on the ground. Sol was for
remaining until the next morning so as not to miss supper, but
a constable was summoned to hasten our departure. So we
left Kiamesha Lake after a bare two weeks' employment at the
Cedar View Hotel.

My unexpected arrival home caused a great commotion, as
if I had been away for years, and I was hugged and made much
of, and it was some time before I could tell my story. I had
had no supper and my mother commanded Molly to go down
to the grocery store for a tin of herring in tomato sauce and
some rolls. Molly's hesitation to go to the grocer's brought
back to my mind the precarious nature of the family's credit
situation. I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my two
weeks' wages in eleven crinkled dollar bills (I had spent one
dollar for laundry), and gave them to my mother, who counted
out six of them into Molly's hands and told her to give them to

332 A LOST PARADISE

the grocer on account and to say nothing of my return. I did
not doubt that my mother herself would have something
plausible to tell him by morning.

Later Molly and I took a walk on Madison Avenue and I
was brought up to date on matters pertaining to our family
and friends . I learned that Molly had broken with the Plesches !
In the first week of my absence Mrs. Plesch had written
asking her to come to Bay Ridge for Sunday supper, and
Molly, greatly flattered, had gone. There she had been intro-
duced to Mr. Cartwright, an Englishman of middle age, who
thereafter never left her side. He expounded in great detail the
philosophy of anarchism, with special emphasis on its effect
on the relations of the sexes. He had asked permission to see
her home, and when he said good-night on the stoop of our
house, he had invited her to a concert and ball in Webster
Hall on the following evening. Molly had consulted Hannah on
the propriety of accepting an invitation from a man she had
only just met, but Hannah thought Mr. Cartwright' s friend-
ship with the Plesches guaranteed his respectability. At any
rate, she saw no harm in going to a concert and ball.

At the ball, as they were waltzing, Mr. Cartwright had
made Molly the extraordinary proposal that she should
accompany him to his apartment near by. Molly left him then
and there in the middle of the dance, and arrived home alone
in a state of bewilderment and shock. She had not breathed a
word of this to anyone but me. But the incident had cooled
her toward anarchism and all its exponents. She absolved
Mr. Plesch from any blame for the behavior of his friend, but
she thought Mrs. Plesch might have conspired with Mr.
Cartwright in the attempt to introduce her to the rites of free
love. Because of the unsavory episode Molly was now inclined
to question the basic philosophy of anarchism, which rested,
so it appeared to her, only on the assumed natural goodness of
people. She discovered little natural goodness in Mrs. Plesch
and certainly none in Mr. Cartwright. She was even inclined

A Paradise of the Rich 333

to question the natural goodness of Emma Goldman, Johann
Most, and other great figures of militant anarchism.

Still smarting from my fortnight's intimacy with Sol
Rashkin, I could not but share Molly's disillusionment with
the human race, and I wondered again whether socialism, with
its curbs on the evil and predatory instincts of people, rather
than anarchism, was not perhaps the best hope of the future.
As for Mr. Plesch, I hesitatingly permitted myself to appraise
him anew in the light of Molly's experience with Mr. Cart-
wright and my own with Sol; and I arrived at the conclusion
that he was a weak, good man who mistakenly endowed hu-
manity with his own virtues. I also began to see him in a new
perspective as a pedagogue a weak idealist, unable to main-
tain discipline and prone to be indulgent where his affections
were involved. I realized that at rny time of life I should be
playing the piano with the assurance and command of an I.
Jacobs, and that I would never acquire these qualities except
under the pressure of the strictest discipline. I revealed to
Molly these doubts and my reluctance to continue my studies
with Mr. Plesch. She agreed with me that it was time for a
change. In both our minds was the desire to divorce ourselves
completely from anarchism and anarchists.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

N,

I ow again as in the old days on the East Side our
flat was never without guests from overseas. Friends and
relatives from Russia came to us in an unbroken stream and
stayed until they found jobs and suitable lodgings. The rate of
the turnover varied. Sometimes a visitor remained only a
week, when he was summoned to a distant town by some
closer relative. Sometimes he lodged with us for months.

I recall a lengthy tenure by a very distant relation who
brought with him a man he had met on the voyage over. They
slept in the windowless room next to the kitchen. The distant
cousin was naive to the point of being a simpleton, and his
continual inconsequential chatter amused me, though it an-
noyed the rest of the family. He and his friend were unfail-
ingly cheerful and childishly optimistic about their prospects
in New York. Both were tailors, and they soon found work

Sergei 335

in a sweatshop. They did not seem to mind the long hours, the
lack of light and ventilation, and the unfeeling attitude of the
foremen and boss. They hoped someday to own a sweatshop
of their own. In the meantime they showed no inclination to
leave us, and offered to pay us something for board and lodg-
ing. In our impecunious state such an offer was tempting. But
the pair were unsanitary to a degree that exceeded the laxity
permitted to persons in our economic station. My cousin and
his friend were cheerfully indifferent to the vermin that, hid-
den in their clothes and belongings, had left Russia with them
and accompanied them to America; and my mother, who was
not inclined to be over-finicky in such matters, was obliged
to speak out and to urge them to seek lodgings elsewhere.

I believe our visitors found our house congenial, for they
made a valiant attempt to meet my mother's hygienic require-
ments. Many nights when everyone but I was asleep they
would stay up and painstakingly explore the seams of their
undergarments and clothing, prattling the while in a subdued
but cheerful undertone about quite alien matters. Indeed, the
men were so pathetically eager to remain that they would
eventually have sufficiently deloused themselves to overcome
my mother's objections. But their hopes were dashed by a
letter my father one day received from his first cousin in
Russia, announcing the imminent arrival in New York of the
cousin's son Sergei Drasin and Ms friend Joseph Cohen. One's
obligation to a first cousin took precedence over that to a
cousin of lesser rank, and my mother now succeeded in dis-
lodging the amiable boarders by means less controversial
than a charge of uncleanliness.

At the moment I was deep in the novels of Turgeniev, and
the name Sergei and what I could learn of his history led me
to identify my cousin with some of the revolutionary heroes
of my favorite author. My father hinted that Sergei had been a
thorn in his family's side in Russia. Though brought up in
strict orthodox Jewish fashion, he had early been beguiled by

336 A LOST PARADISE

Christian learning. He had dropped his Jewish studies and
prepared himself for Gymnasium (Russian high school),
where he had been accepted as one of the small quota of Jews.
More grievous still, he had joined a band of revolutionaries !
("Heathens! Anarchists! Nihilists! God knows what!" my
father called them) and had in due course been apprehended
by the authorities and confined in prison for nine months.
Having only recently been released, Sergei had given in to the
pleadings of his mother to flee the country before he got into
worse trouble. My father added grudgingly that Sergei was
not really evil at heart, only weak in character and, in conse-
quence, an easy prey to evil influences.

When Sergei entered our house, followed by his friend, a
pock-marked, short youth, both of them wearing long Russian
blouses and belts, I instantly saw them as Bazarov and his
disciple Arkady, the hero and his acolyte straight out of
Fathers and Sonsl Sergei, in truth, had a mild, kind face, but I
chose to read into it the haughtiness and disdain with which
Turgeniev had endowed Bazarov. I could hardly believe that I
stood in the actual presence of a fighter for Russian freedom
who had just emerged from solitary confinement in a tsarist
dungeon (later I learned with sorrow that Sergei had been
one of a large company in a large cell) . At bedtime I begged
him to take my bunk on the top of the tin bathtub, but he
refused, saying it didn't matter to him where he slept, and he
and his friend retired to the windowless room of their prede-
cessors.

I longed to be of service to Sergei, and offered to show him
the city. This would give me the chance to be alone with him,
to draw him out on the subject of his heroic past and to get
his opinions about literature and life in general. Like Bazarov,
Sergei to my satisfaction showed little enthusiasm for any-
thing. He accepted my invitation politely, yet in the man-
ner of one conferring a favor, at least so it seemed to me.
We rode on the Second Avenue elevated. He still wore his

Sergei < 337

Russian blouse and smelled of "ship," and he looked every bit
the revolutionary. I felt proud to be seen with him. He was
twenty-three, and I was fifteen and a half, so I hastened to
impress him with the maturity of my intellect and ideas. I
asked him if he knew Hamlet, and he looked at me with
surprise and embarked on a long speech in Russian which, by
its rhythm and magniloquence, I took to be a famous quotation
from that tragedy. I probed him on all intellectual subjects.
His knowledge of Russian literature seemed vast. He quoted
poetry, which surprised me in a revolutionary. Bazarov, I
recalled, had contempt for poetry as a form of sentimental
distraction quite unrelated to the harsh realities of the revolu-
tionary struggle, as he had contempt for Arkady's father's
addiction to the cello.

"Was Lermontov the Russian Byron?" I asked, and Sergei
repeated the Russian poet's own modest disclaimer: "I am
not Byron." As he talked, I was obliged to make a quick
revision of my mental picture of a revolutionary. After all,
Bazarov was a fictional revolutionist; Sergei was the real
thing, fresh from incarceration. Sergei had kind eyes and a
deep, disarming dimple in the very middle of his chin, rather
disconcerting characteristics in a Nihilist. Bazarov was
physically and ideationally granitic, Sergei not so. Sergei
looked as if he could never be ruthless, as Bazarov was.
Which type was the better equipped to liberate Russia? I
could not tell. Sergei's eyes hinted at a character too humane
for the carrying out of the impersonal measures of general
destruction which would clear the way for the advent of the
Brotherhood of Man.

I probed Sergei on religion. He revealed himself a dogmatic
atheist. Religion, he stated flatly, was another name for
superstition. I agreed. But I secretly hoped that he meant
superstition in a theological sense, not the small superstitions
I practiced to ward off evil and to bring me good luck. We got
off at Fourteenth Street and walked westward, talking all the

338 , A LOST PARADISE

while. I took Sergei into Siegel Cooper's store and showed him
the celebrated fountain. We then walked downtown to
Grand Street, and I pointed out well-known shops and thea-
ters. But Sergei exhibited little interest, as befitted a serious
revolutionary. By the time we returned home on the street-
cars, Sergei and I were on a delightfully friendly footing. He
did not exactly make me feel like an equal, but he did not
treat me with the intellectual superiority with which Bazarov
had treated Arkady. That was gratifying, in a way. Yet it had
the effect of diminishing Sergei's stature as a revolutionary.

For some weeks Sergei enjoyed leisure; that is, he did not
look around for work, but devoted all his time to studying
English with the aid of an English-Russian grammar. I offered
to help him and felt honored by his acceptance. His progress
was extraordinarily rapid, for, aside from his diligence, his
knowledge of Latin (he could quote pages of Caesar's Com-
mentaries and Virgil) made English easy for him.

In the evenings I would invite him to walk with me in the
privacy of Central Park, Sometimes at my insistence Molly
would accompany us. I shared all my enthusiasms with her,
and I wanted her not only to get the benefit of Sergei's
revolutionary opinions and beliefs, but also to take account
of the extent of my intimacy with him. To my surprise, Molly
showed no especial interest in my cousin he was really no
relation of hers. On our walks she always managed to place
me between herself and Sergei. This pleased me, as in that
way I had Sergei all to myself and we could converse without
interruption. I was all the more astonished when one evening,
on returning from an errand my mother had sent me on, I
found that Sergei and Molly had gone for a walk without
waiting for me. I went to look for them in the Park, but they
were not in any of the lanes we usually walked in. Nor did
they return until quite late, I could not help feeling piqued
that Sergei could dispense with my company for so long a time.
I felt sure that Molly, notwithstanding her vitality and charm,

Sergei 339

could hardly be an adequate substitute on a two hours' walk
for a passionate intellectual like myself.

In less than two months Sergei spoke and read English
fairly well. At that point he and his friend applied themselves
to finding jobs. And after weeks of answering want ads in the
New York World and the Jewish dailies, they were taken on as
apprentice painters at twelve dollars a week in a railroad yard
In Westchester. Thither they were obliged to move, to my
regret, for I could now see and talk to Sergei only on Sun-
days, when he came to spend the day. But even these Sundays
were less rewarding than I had expected. For when dinner
was over, Sergei and Molly would manage to disappear with-
out saying a word to me 'while I was practicing the piano or
otherwise employed. Sometimes I would catch up with them
in the Park. But I failed to draw Sergei out as I had used to do.

I became a prey to the horrid suspicion that I was not
wanted, that Sergei preferred Molly's company to mine. But
Molly's behavior in Sergei's presence always reassured me.
She appeared to be Indifferent and offhand, and almost always
suggested our return home the moment I joined them. Any-
way, were she to feel anything about my cousin, I felt sure
she would tell me. She had never hesitated to talk to me about
her suitors. I, in my turn, confided in her, even going so far as
to acquaint her with my recent passion for the delicate,
unfortunate young lady at Kiamesha Lake. Whatever Sergei
felt about my sister, it was plain to me, by her silence, that
she was not in love.

Yet, though my reason reassured me, I could not shake off
a recurring feeling of vague dissatisfaction, of hurt pride, of
vexatious discomfort. Between the two something was going
on to which I was not a party. Sergei was often kind and
informative, but I no longer felt the elation of being singled
out. Once, when the three of us were walking on Madison
Avenue, Sergei gave me a nickel to buy myself a soda in an
ice-cream parlor we were passing. It was a warm Sunday,

340 A LOST PARADISE

and I enjoyed the soda. But when I emerged from the parlor,
Sergei and Molly were nowhere in sight. After a futile search
of side streets, I went home, but it was more than an hour
later when they appeared, Molly complaining that they had
looked for me everywhere, even in the Park, and could not
imagine what had become of me! This could hardly be the
truth. I was taken aback by her duplicity. But Sergei's silence
smote me to the heart. Bazarov would never have stooped to
deceit, even tacitly. If Sergei loved Molly, why didn't he
come out with it like a man and a revolutionary? I recalled the
passage in Fathers and Sons in which Bazarov discussed with
Arkady his passion for Madame Odintsova, and even confided
to the peasant coachman who was driving them his chagrin at
having been outsmarted by that unfeeling lady! Bazarov hid
nothing from his friend. With bitterness I told myself that
Sergei was not the real thing.

My fears proved to be only too well-founded. My mother
and father spoke in my presence unfavorably of the intimacy
of the pair, my mother because she foresaw a life of poverty
and drudgery for her daughter, my father because of his
congenital hostility to the happiness of his stepchildren. And
one night Molly herself dispelled all doubt by announcing her
engagement to Sergei. To my mother's reasoned objections
she opposed a passionate stubbornness for which her former
simulated indifference had not at all prepared us. She countered
my father's cold opposition with a bold declaration of love
for Sergei. "She loves him!" my father mimicked scornfully.
"What kind of nonsense is that! They love! They don't love!
At home [meaning in Russia] one never heard the word 'love' !
One loved after marriage, not before. Sergei is my sister's
child, and I had a duty to befriend him. But he is a heathen.
He holds nothing sacred, neither God nor Tsar! Do you have
to love him"? Can't you love somebody else?"

But it was all to no avail. At Molly's behest Sergei no
longer visited us on Sundays. But they met in the Park, where

Sergei 341

they walked about all day and took shelter in ice-cream
parlors when it rained. Without relaxing her opposition, my
mother sent me after them to the Park with a paper bag full of
hard-boiled eggs and buttered rolls. The three of us sat on the
grass and ate our lunch. By then I had become a confidant and
ally. Molly had asked my forgiveness for her evasions, and
Sergei, in his trouble, turned to me for advice. This at once
restored my former esteem for him, and the contemplation of
his future dual relationship of cousin and brother-in-law gave
me pleasure.

They could, of course, easily resolve their difficulties by
eloping, a method that Molly herself suggested. This, how-
ever, Sergei, much to my astonishment, opposed. Instead, he
suggested conciliation. (Bazarov would have frowned on
marriage itself as a bourgeois institution. He would have
lived openly with Molly, defying my mother and father and
the whole world, if need be!) Sergei held the opinion that in
time my mother would give way. If that should happen, my
father could not hold out much longer, for, owing to my
economic ascendancy, his power in family matters was waning
perceptibly. Faced with a united front of my mother and me,
he would eventually be forced to capitulate or else himself
seek another home, an alternative most unacceptable to him.
I could see the force of such reasoning. After all, things were
different from the days when I would be sent by my mother to
Zalman Reich's with a peace-offering of gefilte fish and
chaleh to plead with my father to return home.

Sergei's counsel, though regrettably wanting in revolu-
tionary defiance, bore fruit. I was delegated to work on my
mother, which I did earnestly and with great enthusiasm. I
painted Sergei as a man awakened to reality and its responsi-
bilities by love, and I went so far (with, indeed, a heavy heart)
as to hint that, once married, he would lose his revolutionary
ardor and aims and devote himself exclusively to wife and
children. I also added that Sergei had had an offer of a steady

342 A LOST PARADISE

house-painting job in Waterbury at fifteen dollars a week.
There being no more desirable suitor at hand, my mother was
unable to withstand the logic and passion of my intervention.
Furthermore, she found herself in the indefensible position of
siding with my father against her children (Hannah had, of
course, joined our faction). She capitulated. And to soften the
blow of her defection to "our" side, she made the suggestion
that my father should be invited by Molly to officiate at the
wedding ceremony. Realizing now that further opposition
would be futile, my father very sensibly accepted both the
situation and Molly's invitation to him to preside at her
wedding. So Molly and Sergei were married, and removed to
Waterbury.

Before a year had passed, Molly gave birth to a son. At my
suggestion the infant was named Walt Whitman, whose
poetry both Molly and I constantly read. Naming a child after
anyone but a deceased relative was unheard of among respect-
able Jews. I was therefore obliged to pretend to my father
and mother that Whitman was the Anglicized form of Velvel,
the name of a deceased relation of Sergei's in Russia. Fortu-
nately my father could recall some such relative, and no more
was said about the matter. I nicknamed my new nephew
"Whitty," and only his parents, Hannah, and I knew the
secret of its origin. I hoped that the child would grow up to be
a poet like his namesake, or, at the least, a good-hearted,
well-read, sensitive man.

In the meantime Whitty's father had settled down, as I had
promised my mother he would, into a kind and devoted hus-
band, industrious to a degree. His resemblance to Bazarov
grew less and less distinct, and I felt more and more that I was
his intellectual equal. As the application of a proper chemical
reveals words that have been written in invisible ink, so
marriage had brought to the surface Sergei's orthodox vir-
tues, and I recognized their beneficent effect on Molly's com-
fort and peace of mind. Had Sergei been a Bazarov, he might

Sergei 343

not even have fallen in love with Molly, who, though a girl of
spirit and charm, possessed neither the challenging maturity
and cynicism of a Madame Odintsova nor the intellectual and
moral passion of that ideal revolutionary mate, Elena, the
dedicated, self-sacrificing soul-mate of the proud Bulgarian
revolutionary Insarov, in Turgeniev's On the Eve. I loved
Sergei for Molly's sake and later on for his own. Yet often I
recalled that he had had it in his power to be different, and I
rather wished that he had had the strength to resist his passion
for a simple girl like my sister. His marriage and its restric-
tive consequences had perhaps cut short an important revolu-
tionary career. It had certainly robbed me of a hero and an
ideal.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M,

.OLLY'S marriage once more disrupted our
household economy, which now called for a move either to in-
crease the family's earning power or to lower its living costs.
From a commercial point of view, Madison Avenue had been a
disappointment. The Jewish elite had not bombarded my
father with requests to perform marriages and circumcisions,
and most of what money I earned came from the lower East
Side. In a family council in which for the first time I partici-
pated as an equal, we weighed the advantages of a move to
the scenes of my childhood, the lower East Side. For one
thing, I should no longer waste hours in traveling; and my
being always on the spot and immediately accessible to
prospective pupils from the neighborhood must certainly
result in an increase in my earnings. My father, too, was sure
to benefit from a move to a less "high-toned" part of town.

Debut 345

Most of his friends and acquaintances lived on the lower East
Side. He might gather a brand-new clientele from among their
friends and acquaintances. Then there was Mr. Beylinson, his
former pupil and more recent benefactor. Mr. Beylinson
resided close to his ice-cream factory on Grand Street.
Proximity to Mr. Beylinson was desirable in the event of
sudden financial emergencies. In fact, he had once hinted to
my father that if "one" lived closer to him he might be in a
position to "throw him something" once in a while.

Immediately after Molly's marriage my father, at my
mother's instigation, called on Mr. Beylinson to explore the
nature of that "something" and to acquaint him with our
resolve to move downtown. By good fortune the "something"
was immediately available to my father. It related to the
weekly collection of sums owed Mr. Beylinson's ice-cream
factory by numerous ice-cream parlors in New York and its
environs. It was a part-time occupation, and could be disposed
of in two days a week. It required no knowledge of English.
My father would be given duplicate bills in Yiddish. The
salary was five dollars a week and car fare.

My father did not immediately accept. Bringing home the
momentous offer, he asked us, and himself, whether bill-
collecting was consonant with the dignity of the profession of
shochet and mohel? We could not, in honesty, say it was.
My mother, however, hit on a solution of the delicate problem.
My father was to accept the job and after a token collection or
two turn it over to me, first obtaining, of course, Mr. Beylin-
son's consent. On hearing the suggested compromise, Mr.
Beylinson acquiesced, confessing that he, too, had worried
about the question of propriety involved in my father's ac-
ceptance of a commercial task that had no religious connota-
tion like, for example, the sale of matzoth and Passover wine.

We moved into a four-room tenement on Rivington Street
at the corner of Gouverneur. The rent was twelve dollars a
month. Our upstairs neighbor on Madison Avenue, Naomi

346 A LOST PARADISE

Finkle, the schoolteacher, entered into an arrangement with
my mother whereby Naomi, who taught in a school close to
Rivington Street, would eat lunch at our house five days a
week for six dollars a month. This, my mother figured, would,
in effect, reduce our rent to seven dollars. She minimized
the cost of feeding Miss Finkle, alleging that she was a tiny
person (as she was) who ate "like a bird." Thus, when we
were settled in Rivington Street, our economy presented
approximately the following picture per month:

INCOME : Ice-cream collections $20

Piano lessons and lessons in
English 20

Sale of matzoth and Pass-
over wine (on the aver-
age) ^ 2

Sarah's contribution from
wages 1 6

Miss Finkle' s lunches 6

Weddings, circumcisions,
slaughtering of chickens,
etc. 6

Total $70

OUTGO: Rent $12

Food 50
Clothing, shoes, gas, and

synagogue dues 1 5

Total $77

The imbalance between income and expenditure was not
considered improper. Indeed, my mother thought it rather
favorable, and claimed that our prospects looked bright for the
first time since we had left Waterbury.

If our prospects looked bright, even brighter was my out-
look on the world. There appeared to be no limit to my

Debut 347

discoveries in the realm of music. Living now within ten
minutes* walk from Katz's music store, I established the
closest relations with Mr. Katz, and soon the shop became my
second home. There I was free to examine the sheet music and
the bound volumes reposing in cardboard folders on a sea of
shelves behind the counter. Mr. Katz was a married man with
two children, and his business sense was of necessity keen. He
had been a singer himself, a basso. He had prudently put his
savings into this shop, and he had prospered. His love of
music and musicians expressed itself in his kindness to enthu-
siastic, indigent students like myself. No longer was I con-
strained to buy music. On his small piano I tried out a never-
ending series of classic masterpieces; and when, as with the
later Beethoven sonatas, I felt the absolute need of posses-
sion, Mr. Katz allowed me the same large discount he gave to
an eminent pedagogue like Tramonti.

I began frequenting Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan
Opera House. In Katz's store I learned that money was not
essential in gaining admission to these temples of music. One
of the piano students who, like rne, hung around the store won-
dered that I had not heard the great Polish pianist Vladimir
de Pachmann. And on my confessing that I couldn't afford to
buy a ticket, he declared a ticket was not necessary, and
invited me to accompany him to the virtuoso's next recital.

We gave ourselves time to walk to Carnegie Hall, thus sav-
ing twenty cents in car fare. Once there, my friend advised me
to stick close to him, and on no account to say anything to any-
one. Then, with me behind him, he joined the crowd that,
tickets in hand, pressed at the gate of the ticket-taker. When
his turn arrived, my friend rushed so quickly past the ticket-
taker that the man could barely put forth a restraining hand
before I too had passed him. Me, however, he stopped, and
demanded my ticket. Whereupon my friend boldly called
back: "That's all right! He's with me" and drew me for-
ward. The ticket-taker appeared satisfied with this explana-

348 A LOST PARADISE

tion. At any rate, his attention was immediately diverted by
the press of impatient ticket-holders behind us, and a second
later we were safely inside the auditorium, two anonymous
youths among a large group of standees.

The incomparable De Pachmann did not command my
entire attention, for I expected the ticket-taker to appear at
any moment and order us to leave the hall. But we were safe
enough; and toward the end of the concert I felt sufficiently at
ease to be ravished by a group of Chopin mazurkas which the
pianist played with shimmering coloring and an ease I thought
I could duplicate. Yet when I tried out these same muzurkas
in Katz's store, I found them not at all easy to play. Nor could
I summon the variety of tone-colors De Pachmann had, so to
speak, shaken out of his sleeve. Every celebrated virtuoso I
listened to invariably sent me confidently to the piano to
repeat what I had heard. And, invariably, the music con-
fronted me with difficulties that had not existed for the
virtuoso.

My colleague taught me many ways of informally gaining
admittance to Carnegie Hall. The Metropolitan Opera House,
however, was another matter. There the ticket-taker at the
main entrance had once been too quick for my friend, who,
his ruse having been instantly discovered, turned tail and fled
from the building. But only to rush around the corner to the
gallery entrance on Fortieth Street. On the way he picked up
a discarded ticket envelope and in it placed a quarter. Climbing
the staircase to its very top, he handed the envelope to the
ticket-taker at the gallery gate. That practical employee,
feeling the coin in the envelope, acknowledged what was then
a time-honored practice by calmly admitting my crafty
friend. I too came to employ this ruse, and the frequency of
my visits to the Metropolitan depended only on the number
of quarters I could round up. Fortunately for the well-being of
my family, I desired to witness only the music dramas of

Debut 349

Wagner. My visits to the Metropolitan were therefore not
unreasonably frequent.

The Metropolitan performances were heatedly debated in
Katz's store. Each of us had his favorite artists. Mine, of
course, were limited to those who appeared in the Wagnerian
operas. The majority of the vocal students and teachers who
gathered in the store to voice enthusiasms and exchange
opinions espoused only Italian and French opera and the
artists who appeared in them. I could not understand their
bias for what I believed to be a perversion of opera, whose
true function only Richard Wagner fully understood. In my
ignorant childhood I had loved the music of Verdi and a few
other melodious Italian composers. But that was before I came
to know the music dramas of Wagner, which were based on
lofty ethical ideas and noble emotions, which in turn gave
birth to a kind of endless melody that could not exist apart from
them. Compared with this kind of music, hqw tawdry and
meaningless were the collections of tunes that constituted
Italian opera!

I heard endless talk at Katz's about Italian bel canto. For
myself I scorned the idea of vocalism as an end in itself. Of
what use was beautiful singing of music that had neither
validity nor Importance? I could not care that Madame
Sembrich sang trills, roulades, arpeggios, and scales with the
precision of an Instrumental virtuoso. With all her vocal
resources she could never convey the nobility of Elisabeth in
Tannhauser. Nor did she even wish to portray that self-
sacrificing, tender virgin; preferring instead to please the
groundlings with the coloratura fireworks of an allegedly in-
sane Lucia di Lammermoor. Another example of misguided
ambition was Enrico Caruso, the "golden-voiced" tenor who
had become the financial mainstay of the Metropolitan. His
voice was exceptional, that I freely admitted. But to what base
uses was he putting it three or four times a week! Not for him

350 A LOST PARADISE

the mystical, virtuous Lohengrin, the erring and later repent-
ant Tannhauser, the noble Siegfried, the love-ravaged Tristan.
For him (the more the pity) the sensual Duke in Rigoktto,
the clown in the melodious / Paghacci, the one-dimensional
Faust in Gounod's musical travesty of Goethe's tragedy.
Most of the disputants in Katz's store were partisans of
Caruso, and I battled unaided. Had the quality of Caruso's
voice been controversial, my attack on the tenor as an artist
would have been successful. My opponents untiringly in-
sisted on the sensational beauty of his voice. "I agree," I said
at one particularly stormy session; "Caruso is like a man who,
possessing the most beautiful handwriting in the world, uses
his penmanship in forging checks." This neat retort was
admired for itself. But it convinced no one.

The low musical taste of the majority of the habitues of the
shop was something that I could bear, for I felt that time was
on my side, and that eventually everybody must realize the
supremacy of Wagner. What really disturbed me was the
indifference of the musicians and music-lovers around me to
the moral values of art. Indeed, in argument, many of them
denied that art, especially music, possessed moral values.
Music, they contended, was music and nothing else. As for the
interpreters of music, it was absurd to expect them (as they
knew I did) to be more moralistic than ordinary people. I
insisted that morality and idealism were implicit in the libret-
tos and music of the operas of Richard Wagner, and that the
interpreters of these operas must in turn become ennobled by
them. I was ridiculed for holding these opinions. But Mr. Katz
indulgently said that such beliefs were understandable in one
so young as I.

Mr. Katz was of a mundane disposition, though he would
not deny the importance of Wagner. He was given tp telling
off-color jokes and stories, which I pretended not to hear. On
the subject of Wagnerian singers he held that they were no
better morally than the artists whose specialty was Italian or

Debut 3 5 1

French opera. It was common knowledge, he said, that

J-Jerr ( one o f t h e tenors of the Metropolitan's German

wing) was an unmitigated lecher (Mr. Katz hastened to add
that he himself had nothing against persons so disposed) . I

spoke up in defense of Herr , whom, of course, I did not

know. But I had seen and heard him as Lohengrin, and I
could not believe that an artist who so convincingly expressed
the pure emotions of that supernatural being could be a
sensualist privately. More distressing was a casual remark
Mr. Katz made one day after he returned from a matinee
performance of Tannhauser, which I had also witnessed. I
had been exalted by the artistry of my favorite Wagnerian

soprano, Madame , in the role of the saintly Elisabeth.

Mr. Katz agreed that she had given an excellent performance.
Then, as an afterthought, and as if to himself, he said some-
thing so destructive to my attribution of purity and innocence

to Madame that tears came to my eyes and I was

obliged to turn away to hide them. "She wouldn't be bad,"
Mr. Katz said, "in bed."

Not all of Mr. Katz's customers were worldly, over-
sophisticated, or morally callous. Some of the younger students
were receptive of my philosophy of the close interrelation of
art and life. If they lacked the boldness to abet me in the
ideational disputes that raged in the store, I was nevertheless
aware of their sympathy for me. I became friendly with two
of these mute and timid adherents, Mike Dorf, a cellist, and
Hymie Fink, a violinist. Mike lived in Cherry Street, a
neighborhood once strictly Irish, but now more than half
Jewish. He was thirteen years of age, a thin, lanky, long-
faced boy in short pants. He lived with his widowed mother
and earned his board and keep by playing odd jobs at weddings
and balls. He himself had free lessons from a famous cellist
who sat in the fifth cello stand in the Philharmonic Society
Orchestra and lived uptown. Hymie Fink was a youth of

352 A LOST PARADISE

about my own age, one of a large family of brothers and
sisters. He had a round, absolutely untroubled face and wore
his hair in a pompadour. He was extraordinarily agreeable,
never voicing objections to anything I or anyone else pro-
posed.

At my suggestion the three of us undertook to play chamber
music. Mr. Katz kindly lent us a volume of trios by Reissigger,
and one auspicious day we met at my house and essayed
the first trio in the book. The session was both exciting and
amusing. Not having practiced our parts individually, we
frequently found ourselves helpless before intricate and
difficult passages. We had ruled against taking time out for
correction of individual mistakes, and we only stopped when
one of us had lost his place. The resulting cacophony made
us laugh, and drove my father from the house. Though I knew
that chamber-music players abhorred leadership, I was, for
once, in the gratifying position of being the guide of our trio.
With the score before me, I could spot mistakes, advise my
colleagues that they were behind or ahead, and call for repe-
titions of passages in which we sounded at odds. As I played,
I could not help contrasting my present decisive position with
the abject secondary role I had played during my brief part-
nership with Sol Rashkin. If only Sol Rashkin were around to
hear rne call out: CC F sharp, Mike, not F natural," or "Hymie,
you are two bars behind."

Down at the Educational Alliance there was unusual activ-
ity. A children's theater had been started by a rich uptown
lady, and performances of Snow White and the Seven D<warf$
had been scheduled for the auditorium. In addition, the
celebrated violin virtuoso, teacher, and conductor from up-
town, Sam Franko, was forming an Educational Alliance
string orchestra, with the twofold object of providing inciden-
tal music for the performances of the children's theater and
giving several orchestral concerts during the season. Mike and
Hymie at once applied for membership in the orchestra and,

Debut 353

after an audition by Mr. Franko, were admitted to the class.

After the first rehearsal they came to me with awesome
tales of Mr. Franko's musicianship, his iron discipline and
terrible temper. In fact, all they had done that evening was to
play over and over again some scales in unison at a very slow
tempo. It was, In effect, a free lesson, if one did not mind the
abuse Mr. Franko heaped on practically all of the players.
Sarcastic admonitions and downright insults had filled the
room. Miss Yetta Garbash, the spinster lady from uptown
who had created the children's theater and invited Mr,
Franko (for the magnificent remuneration, it was reported,
of twenty-five dollars each weekly session!) to form the
orchestra, had been present at the rehearsal and, unable to
bear the conductor's terrifying fulminations, had retreated
from the room.

At around ten thirty p.m., however, when the ordeal was
over, Mr. Franko became affable, fraternized with the mem-
bers of his orchestra, and invited all who cared to do so to
walk with him to the Third Avenue el on Grand Street, where
he would board a train for his home uptown. Mike and Hymie
and eight or ten other players accompanied him to the el.
Mr. Franko was in an expansive mood and, as he walked,
spoke about eminent musicians he had known in the past and
knew now. He himself had been a child prodigy and had
traveled much in the civilized world. He had many positive
ideas about music, among them the belief that mastery of
scales was the true foundation of instrumental virtuosity.

At the second rehearsal, a week later, Mr. Franko told the
class that he required a young pianist to fortify the cello
section, which consisted of Mike only, and to add harmonic
body to the strings. Mike Dorf thereupon recommended me,
and Mr. Franko asked him to bring me along the following
week.

The rehearsals were held in a high-ceilinged room that
served as an art studio in the daytime. Its walls were covered

354 A L ST PARADISE

with water-colors, oils, and drawings of East Side scenes and
figures. Mr. Franko questioned me about my musical back-
ground, and gave me a piano reduction of Schubert's "Un-
finished" Symphony to read. I must have read to his satisfac-
tion, for he said nothing. After putting the orchestra through a
few slow scales, he said we would try the Schubert symphony.
Mr. Franko was watchful and thorough to a degree I had
never encountered in a teacher before. He stopped us inces-
santly, suggested fingerings for tricky passages, and had them
played in very slow tempo a number of times, accelerating
the speed as the orchestra played more cleanly. Sometimes
he would seize some player's violin and show how he wanted
a passage or a phrase to sound. I was rather taken aback by
the tone he produced. It was straight and dry, not at all like
the lush, heartbreaking sounds Sol Rashkin used, with slow
vibrato, to coax from his violin. Yet his playing was impres-
sive for its precision and rhythm, though its want of sen-
suousness seemed to me a denial of the genius of the instru-
ment.

The Schubert symphony after a while began to take recog-
nizable shape. I had never before heard it. It did not resemble
any symphonies I knew. Its alternations of pure lyricism and
violent drama were altogether novel. The oboe melody at the
beginning was mine to play, and the effect of the melancholy
phrase over the figuration in the strings was ravishing. I also
helped out the cello with the lovely second theme. Mr. Franko
found much fault with the intonation of the orchestra, which
did not quite agree with the piano. He shouted a good deal and
ordered everyone to tune to the piano A, which I boldly
sounded. At length the ordeal (the evening had been an
ordeal, notwithstanding the acute pleasure the music gave
me) was over. Mr. Franko now assumed a pleasant benignity
and invited us to walk with him to the elevated. I strode next
to him. He said I read music fairly well, and asked the name
of my teacher. When I confessed that I had none, he said he

Debut 355

would speak to his sister Jeanne about me. Jeanne Franko, he
told us, had been a great pianist in her time and was now
devoting herself to teaching.

When we neared the elevated station, Mr. Franko suddenly-
announced that he craved a glass of beer and a sandwich and
invited us to join him. We were eight boys and one girl, nine
in all. It seemed incredible that anyone should undertake the
expense of such a generous invitation. Mr. Franko took our
silence for assent, which it was, and marched us into Lorber's
famous restaurant on Grand Street, directly opposite the
Grand Street Theater, the very restaurant where the stars and
actors of the Jewish theater supped nightly after performances.
I had often in my childhood stood in front of it in the hope of
catching a glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Adler, Mr. and Mrs.
Thomashefsky, Mr. Kessler, Mrs. Lipzin, and, best of all,
Miss Bertha Kalich, whom I then secretly loved.

Mr. Franko seemed to feel quite at home in Lorber's. At his
behest waiters joined together three tables, around which he
then disposed us, himself at the head. He ordered ten beers
and ten Swiss cheese sandwiches! We drank and ate, following
his lead. He spoke about conductors he had known and played
under, about the great violinist Joachim and other luminaries,
about the musical supremacy of Berlin and Vienna over New
York. To these superior capitals he repaired each summer to
relax from his winter labors and to immerse himself in the
main stream of music. I listened, fascinated, and hoped he
would stay till midnight; for apart from my interest in him
and the European musicians he described, I wished to see at
close hand the thespian celebrities who would arrive about
that time. But this was not to be. For at eleven thirty Mr.
Franko, after inquiring whether we would like something
more to eat and drink which we politely refused called for
his bill. This he examined carefully, even, to my embarrass-
ment, disputing some items. Sitting immediately on his right,
I could see for myself how costly the party had been. Finally

356 A LOST PARADISE

Mr. Franko gave the waiter two dollar bills and told him to
keep the change!

The following week, on our now accustomed walk to the
elevated, Mr. Franko told me he had spoken with his sister
about me and had made an appointment for me to play for her
the next day. Madam Franko lived on the first floor of a
brownstone house on Madison Avenue between Sixty-first and
Sixty-second streets. She opened the door to my ring and led
me into a large, pleasantly furnished room. A light-colored
upright piano stood against a wall, and above it hung numerous
framed photographs of musical celebrities, each one per-
sonally inscribed to Madam Franko.

She looked middle-aged and was rather stout. Like her
brother, she was brusque in speech and manner. After a few
inquiries about my studies, she asked me to play. I played the
Liszt transcription of the "Liebestod" from Tristan. When I
finished, she made no comment about my playing, but offered
to give me lessons. I told her that I was in no position at the
moment to pay her, and she said that she was prepared to give
me a scholarship. But I must play Wagner sparingly and con-
centrate on the "old, good composers" and acquire a solid
technique. My first assignment was to be Bach's Organ
Prelude and Fugue in A minor in Liszt's arrangement. Madam
Franko then went to the piano and played the composition
from memory, with beautiful finger accuracy and a matter-
of-factness that I could not help liking, though it gave the per-
formance an air of aloofness foreign to my own approach to
music. However, I read into her restriction on Wagner an
animosity to that supreme composer and, for all I knew, to
modernism itself, and I found myself resenting her lack of
musical perspective. There could be, of course, no question
of my abandoning Wagner. But my need for a solid technique
was apparent to me too, and I accepted the scholarship grate-
fully. Before I left, Madam Franko asked several direct
questions about the economy of our household. And as I bade

Debut

her good-by she said that if I practiced hard and followed her
directions faithfully she could prophesy a fine musical career
for me.

Riding home on the streetcar, I gave myself up to visions
of the future thus opened to me. How soon would it be before
I would walk onto the stage of Carnegie Hall like De Pach-
mann and be greeted by the applause of a packed house? I
visualized my inscribed photograph among those of the
celebrities on the wall over Madam Franko's piano.

At home the news of Madam Franko's sponsorship and her
hopes for my future created a sensation. And some weeks
later an event occurred which confirmed Madam Franko's
interest in me. When I reached home one afternoon after a
long, heated argument at Katz's on the subject of Wagner
contra Verdi, my mother told me that Madam Franko her-
self had just paid her a visit. They had managed to converse,
Madam Franko in German, my mother in Yiddish, and they
had understood each other! Madam Franko had said that I
was gifted but undisciplined, and that I held stubbornly to
certain revolutionary opinions about music and society.
Furthermore, I paid no attention to dress and had no manners,
and much of an artist's success depended on dress and de-
portment. She had noticed that I wore no gloves, and had
bought me a pair, which she hoped I would accept and wear.
The gloves were of beautiful, soft brown leather and bore a
much-advertised trade-mark. I was not sure that I should ac-
cept so personal a gift as an article of dress. But because the
gloves were symbolic of my artistic possibilities, I decided to
wear them, like a decoration.

Under Madam Franko's tutelage my technique began to
improve. Along with the music of Bach, now extended to in-
clude the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavichord, she
gave me the least difficult preludes and waltzes of Chopin,
and (I presumed as a conciliatory gesture) the Liszt arrange-
ment of the Spinning Chorus from Wagner's Flying Dutch-

358 A LOST PARADISE

man. Madam Franko intimated that she had nothing against
Wagner's earlier works. They were, in the main, melodious.
When it came to operatic lyricism, however, the Italians for
her were supreme.

For practice in sight reading, Madam Franko gave me a
book of overtures arranged for four hands. Together we
played the overtures to The Magic Flute, The Marriage of
Figaro, Fidelio, and Bellini's Norrna. When we finished play-
ing Norma, Madam Franko challenged me to cite any music
of Wagner that could compare with it in beauty and no-
bility. I promptly cited all the music dramas of Wagner and
said heatedly that I found the overture to Norma neither noble
nor beautiful. It was " barrel-organ music," and hardly fit to
be mentioned in the same breath with the very least of Wag-
ner's works. Madam Franko thereupon grew angry and
called me an impertinent and ungrateful boy. I burst into tears
and ran out of the house. I swore to myself that rather than
abandon Wagner I would give up Madam Franko. But that
evening when I arrived at the Educational Alliance for the
orchestra rehearsal, Mr. Franko gave me a sealed note from
his sister. "I will not permit your bad manners and ignorance
to interfere with your work," it said. "I shall expect you at the
usual time." I was relieved to receive what was obviously an
apology. For in spite of my determination not to abandon
Wagner, I could not bear the thought of abandoning my career
as well.

At my next lesson Madam Franko refrained from making
any reference to Bellini. She talked about the progress I had
made, and hoped that in a few months I would be ready to
play for some of her influential friends. To prepare me for
that event she would work with me on a recital program, and
when I had mastered it she would arrange "an evening" at
some "rich" house. The idea both attracted and repelled me.
I saw the importance of a private concert as a test of my
abilities. At the same time I felt an antagonism toward

Debut 359

Madam Franko's rich friends and resented the power she
ascribed to them. I esteemed Madam Franko as an artist and
pedagogue, but her social philosophy filled me with distaste.
I was sensible of her kindness and appreciated her interest in
me, but I suspected a condescension in her manner toward me.
My mother, who had been impressed by Madam Franko's
visit to Rivington Street ("She came all the way from up-
town," my mother told Mollie Finkel with pride), her smart
suit and elaborate hat, called her a "practical guardian angel"
and entreated me not to offend her, but obey her in every-
thing, as she meant everything for my good.

For some time after the Bellini- Wagner episode nothing
occurred to disturb our peaceful relations. I mapped out my
day to the best advantage. It was my first attempt at self-
discipline, and it afforded me a conscious pleasure. I practiced
three hours in the morning, then walked the streets for an
hour, reading a volume of Shelley as I walked and looking
up only when I came to a crossing. People whom I bumped
into as I read were invariably kind and polite when I apolo-
gized. I lunched at home with Naomi Finkle. Naomi was well-
read, but her taste in music, notwithstanding her brother's
musical eminence as a member of the Metropolitan Opera
House chorus, was lamentable. Like Madam Franko she loved
the old-fashioned music of Verdi and Donizetti and regarded
the music dramas of Wagner, even the early ones, as so much
noise. Her favorite aria was "Ah^/ors* e lui" from La Traviata.
I tried to expose its inanity by singing and playing it with
mock pathos and exaggerated high spirits in the manner of a
celebrated Metropolitan Opera coloratura soprano, but
Naomi only laughed and reminded me that when we had first
moved to Madison Avenue I, too, had loved Verdi and favored
this very aria.

Twice a week I embarked on my father's ice-cream
"route," traveling as far afield as Brownsville and Rockaway
Beach. I took books with me to read on the streetcars, and the

360 A LOST PARADISE

hours passed quickly. Other afternoons I usually spent at
Katz's, disputing with musical conservatives and die-hards
and examining the music in the daily bundle that Mr. Katz
or his helper brought from Schirmer's or Carl Fischer's.
Beyer's Piano Method, Czerny's technical studies, the etudes
of Heller, Burgmiiller, and so on formed the bulk of these daily
packages. But occasionally someone would place an order for
some new work, or Mr. Katz would invest in a copy of one
as a proof of his enterprise and musical progressiveness.

Thus it was that opening the bulky package one day I found,
sandwiched unobtrusively between volumes of Clernenti and
Kullak sonatinas, a paper-bound vocal score of an opera called
Pelleas and Melisande, by the French composer Debussy. I had
never heard or seen any music by Debussy, though I had
read about the riot that occurred in a Paris concert hall on the
occasion of the first performance of his orchestral tone poem
The Afternoon of a Faun. I opened the score to the introduction,
and my eyes saw and my mind heard harmonies so strange as
to make me doubt the evidence of my sight and my inner ear.
I took the book to the piano and played the opening, and the
actual sounds were even stranger and more unsettling than
those I had imagined. Strange, sad, and brooding were the
phrases and the harmonies I played. The stage direction said
the scene was a forest, and I felt my self actually wandering in
a forest, but one unlike any I had seen myself or experienced
in music. Only in dreams could one be lost and wander in such
a vague, fateful, shut-in, uneasy wood. And in these mysterious
depths, sunless and silent, the sobbing of Melisande sounded
fragile, profound, and heartbreaking. It was a difficult score,
and I was able to play only the simpler pages. But what I
played and sang kindled my imagination and touched my heart.
It blotted out, for the moment, the music of Wagner, which
was ever-present to me. Yet it was too shadowy to vie for long
with Wagner's music. In turn the opening bars of the Tristan
Prelude dispelled the tenuous atmosphere of Pelleas and

Debut 361

Melisande and plunged me into a sea of unresolved yearning.

But I returned frequently to Debussy, always a little uneasily,
as if I feared being disloyal to Wagner.

Miss Garbash's children's theater at the Educational Al-
liance was proceeding with rehearsals of Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs on the small stage of the auditorium. A com-
poser friend of Mr. Franko's had written entr'acte and inci-
dental music for our orchestra. The auditorium had no or-
chestra pit. We played on a small balcony to the right of the
stage and close to the ceiling. Besides an opening number, the
overture to The Caliph of Bagdad by Boieldieu, we had many
cues to obey. "To horse, Otto, to horse! 77 spoken by the
Prince who was to save Snow White from the evil designs of
her stepmother, was our cue to play a short interlude indica-
tive of a journey. An effect of hoofbeats was created by the
rhythmic knocking together of two halves of a coconut shell
backstage. Notwithstanding my passion for Wagner, I en-
joyed the incidental music to Snow White, especially a mock-
humorous "March of the Dwarfs" which accompanied the
entrance of seven children clad as woodsmen and most care-
fully graded as to size. This march was an instant hit with our
audiences, and had to be repeated several times, the dwarfs
exiting each time at a signal from someone in the wings, and
coming out again to the first notes of the encored march. The
admission fee was ten cents, yet the house was always sold
out.

During this and the following season the repertoire of the
children's theater included Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Little
Princess, by the same author, and Mark Twain's The Prince
and the Pauper. Looking back, I am somewhat at a loss to ac-
count for the pleasure I took in these representations. For at
the very same time I was absorbed in the plays of Shakespeare,
Ibsen, and Shaw. I had long since given up the Jewish theater
as juvenile, mediocre, and consciously sensational. I was deep

362 A LOST PARADISE

in the novels of Tolstoy, Turgeniev, Dostoievsky, Gogol,
Zola, Flaubert, Thackeray, and George Eliot. Yet I never
missed a rehearsal of the children's theater, even when the
orchestra was not required to play.

Sitting In the empty auditorium, I felt 1 was the velvet-clad
Fauntleroy. I could never call my mother "dearest" instead of
"mother" as Fauntleroy did his, but only because mine, though
just as lovable, was not as gentle and refined. The cruelty
visited on Sarah Crewe affected me deeply; and the wonderful
scene in which her benefactor transforms with rich hangings
her shabby little attic room into a princess's bower always
brought tears to my eyes. While it was inevitable for justice
and mercy to triumph, the triumph was also beautifully un-
expected, like the startling C major opening of the finale of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. So, too, the denouement of
The Prince and the Pauper was aesthetically, morally right an d,
at the same rime, surprising.

At the opening performance Mark Twain himself sat in the
front row. Dressed all in white, his wavy hair a yellowish
white, he looked pleasantly old and vividly handsome. After
the performance he came backstage and we were all presented
to him. He seemed to me very much at ease for so celebrated
a man. I had expected him to behave somewhat haughtily, as I
would have done in his position. But he spoke to us as to
equals. I could not help feeling let down.

Many celebrated people from uptown came to see the pro-
ductions of the children's theater. The climax of these visits
was undoubtedly the arrival, one Sunday matinee, of the
great Jacob Schiff. We had received word of his forthcoming
visit some days before and were concerned to be well prepared
for the honor. But it was hard to believe that we would
eventually see Jacob Schiff in the flesh, for Jacob Schiff was a
legend among Jews everywhere in the world, and especially
on the East Side of New York. To my father his name was
the supreme symbol of Jewish affluence, power, and ortho-

Debut 363

doxy. It eclipsed, for him, such Old World representatives of
the Jews as the Rothschilds, the Herzels, the Baron Guns-
bergs. Among the things that Jacob SchifF proved, my father
maintained, was the comparability of business success with re-
ligion. Avoiding doing business on the Sabbath, Jacob SchifF
had yet been able to amass many millions. He could be the
leading banker of the world without forgetting his obligations
to his coreligionists. He was indeed a rarity. And it was not
hard to understand why God continued to shower prosperity
on him.

The Sunday matinee finally arrived. A few minutes before
the curtain went up on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, there
was a commotion in the auditorium, and Jacob Schiff and his
party, followed by the top dignitaries of the Educational Al-
liance, entered and took their seats in a row that had been
roped off for them. The performance went unusually well.
The actors and the musicians had never acted and played so
well. After the play Jacob Schiff came on the stage and con-
gratulated the artists. He was short and had a small beard and
looked imposing, and, unlike Mark Twain, he seemed to
know his importance. I had never before met a millionaire,
and I half expected to see on his person some evidence of his
wealth. My father, too, must have had some such illusion, for
that night at home he questioned me closely about the ap-
pearance and habiliments of Jacob Schiff. My mother, on the
other hand, seemed more interested in Mrs. Schiff, of whom I
had little to relate, my own attention having been entirely
centered on Mr. Schiff.

My father made great social capital out of his son's "meet-
ing," as he called my handshake, with the great man, as in-
deed I myself did in the houses of our friends and relatives.
I believe I embroidered the "meeting" even more than my
father did, going so far as to retail a conversation I had with
Jacob Schiff alone in a sequestered comer of the stage, on the
subject of his refusal to lend the Tsar of Russia a large sum of

364 A LOST PARADISE

money because of the pogroms that had occurred in Kishinev
and other Russian cities. The newspapers had played up
Jacob SchifPs humanitarian decision, so I felt myself on pretty

safe ground.

Mr. Franko's orchestra played a secondary role in the
representation of the children's theater. However, it was his
plan, when we should have become fairly proficient as an en-
semble, to demonstrate our progress by a concert of our own
in the auditorium. He now declared that we were about ready
to appear in public. Our orchestra had given one public con-
cert in the Educational Alliance auditorium. But that was in the
nature of a public rehearsal, and no admission was charged.
One of Mr. Franko's best students, a girl of fourteen, had been
the soloist, playing the first movement of Mendelssohn's
Violin Concerto. There being no printed reduction of the
orchestral accompaniment to the concerto for a string en-
semble like ours, Madam Franko offered to accompany the
young lady on the piano. Now, the piano "tuttis" of the
Mendelssohn are extremely difficult to play, and on the day
of the concert Madam Franko, veteran though she was, suc-
cumbed to justifiable nervousness. When the concert was
about to begin, she took me aside and commanded me to sit out
front during the concerto and applaud vociferously the mo-
ment the piano came in with a tutti, and to keep on applauding
until the next entrance of the violin. This I did zealously, the
audience following my lead, so that all of Madam Franko's
solos were drowned in the tumultuous noises out front.

The proposed concert before a paying audience assumed an
immense significance for me when Mr. Franko designated me
as the soloist in Mozart's D minor Concerto, which I was then
studying with Madam Franko. Mr. Franko had discovered a
reduction of the orchestral portion for strings, I was, then, to
make my public debut accompanied by an orchestra! Nothing
could have been more gratifying. Most of the great artists

Debut 365

before the public had made their debuts with orchestra, and
from that springboard had leaped into fame and gone on to
triumphal recital appearances. Besides the implications of such
a debut, there was for me the anticipation of playing over our
orchestra instead of under it, as I had been doing. Three
months were to elapse before I would take my place at a grand
piano placed at the edge of the stage, with the orchestra be-
hind me certainly a long interval to endure with patience,
but, I felt, a necessary one if the professionalism Mr. Franko
desired was to be attained. Besides my concerto, the orchestra
had a long program to learn. Among the purely orchestral
numbers were Gluck's overture to Iphigenla in Aulis, the first
movement of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, Loin du
Ball, a sonata for strings by Pergolesi, Grieg's Peer Gynt
Suite, Heart Throbs, and an arrangement of Binding's Rustle of
Spring. My solo would come before the intermission.

In preparation for the great event, Madam Franko arranged
for me to practice on a grand piano at the Steinway Building
on Fourteenth Street. I had not played a grand piano since my
last visit to Mr. Plesch's house in Bay Ridge, now so long ago,
and I was surprised and annoyed at the intractability of the
elongated ebony instrument that was assigned to me in a large
back room of Steinway Hall. I was further disconcerted by
the sounds that issued from other rooms, where unseen players
were testing pianos sounds of pearly scales, impeccable
octaves, and snatches, professionally executed, of familiar
passages from Chopin and Liszt. My competitors seemed to
be all over the building, and my heart sank at the distance I
still had to travel to match their proficiency. There was some-
thing malevolently human in the resistance of the piano keys to
my fingers. The sounds I expected to hear I could not, try as
I would, coax from them. The scales and passages that I
played with ease on my upright piano at home refused to
emerge at the level of my accustomed pressure. I had to dig
into the keys to elicit any semblance of a respectable tone. I

366 A LOST PARADISE

voiced my despair and frustration to Madam Franko, who
offered no false consolation and said that a good grand piano
was a beast that had to be tamed.

.Madam Franko thought it prudent to prepare at least two
encores, which she thought the public was sure to demand after
my performance of the concerto. I myself had doubts about
the necessity for encores, but there was that in the manner in
which she made the suggestion which assured me the necessity
would arise, regardless of the success or failure of the concerto
with the audience. I thereupon selected Chopin's Nocturne in
F sharp and Mendelssohn's "Spinning Song" to play in that
order a slow piece to follow the rapid finale of the Mozart
concerto and a very fast piece before, bowing and smiling and
helplessly stretching out my arms to the audience, I retired
to the wings for good. (I had taken note of the behavior of
soloists with the Philharmonic Society Orchestra.)

Madam Franko had induced the Steinways, with whom she
appeared to be on the most intimate footing, to ship my
practice piano, which I was also to use at the concert, to the
Educational Alliance a whole week in advance, so that I might
get used to its sound in the auditorium and make what modi-
fications of tone the participation of the orchestra might, in re-
hearsals, necessitate. In three months I had, if not conquered
the " beast," at least managed to tame him to the point that I
no longer feared him. Still, when at the first rehearsal of the
concerto with the orchestra I took my seat in front of the
piano, its lid raised high up on a stick, I was again gripped by
fear of what it might attempt against me at this crucial mo-
ment.

The orchestra finished the first tutti. From his podium Mr.
Franko looked down at rne critically. Madam Franko watched
me from a seat in the front row of the auditorium. I rubbed my
hands together as I had seen .soloists do before starting. They
were damp. The huge instrument, massive and sullen, chal-
lenged me. Mr. Franko tapped his music stand impatiently

Debut 367

with his baton and said: "Well?" I could hesitate no longer,
and I began the lovely quiet first theme. The smallness of the
sound that came back to me was disconcerting. In the room in
Steinway Hall my tone had at last grown ample. From the
corner of my eye I saw Madam Franko making signs to me
to put weight into my fingers. I proceeded to bear down more
heavily on the keys, and the signs subsided.

Suddenly I felt at ease. The orchestra had come in with the
introductory theme very softly, and my fingers were weaving
a musical embroidery over it. Both piano and orchestra grew
louder, more intense. I experienced a joy I had never before
known. I was a craft sailing on an unpredictable sea. At one
moment the sea was turbulent, at one moment calm, but the
bark was strong and flew along confidently. When the or-
chestra ceased on the chord that was the signal for my
cadenza, I did not feel the nervousness I had anticipated for
the moment when, unaided, I must plunge into a maelstrom of
scales, arpeggios, and trills. The cadenza went! And at the end
of the movement the orchestra put aside their instruments and
applauded. Mr. Franko nodded approvingly and Madam
Franko smiled.

That very day, emerging from the Educational Alliance,
my heart almost stopped beating as I beheld my name on a
painted sign announcing the concert. There it was, in large,
bold letters:

SOLOIST

INTERMISSION

I could not tear myself away from the sign. And, indeed,
I managed to pass the Educational Alliance several times each
day, in the company, if I could manage it, of some friend or
acquaintance. I took my mother to see it, and she in turn in-
vited relatives and neighbors to view it with her.

368 A LOST PARADISE

As soloist I'was entitled to four complimentary tickets for
the concert. Our auditorium had no boxes, else I should cer-
tainly have been given one. I had heard that each soloist with
the Philharmonic Society Orchestra was given a box at
Carnegie Hall. One ticket would go to Molly, who had long
before been apprised of my forthcoming debut and had made
plans to leave Waterbury on the morning of the concert and
return In the evening. The day being a Sunday, her husband
would be at home to look after Walt Whitman. Hannah would
leave her child in the care of Jacob. My other two tickets I
reserved for my mother and father. My father had showed an
unusual interest in the concert, and had even been seen point-
ing out my name on the painted sign to his cronies from the
synagogue. My sister Sarah bought two tickets for herself and
her bosom friend, Ella, a young lady who, though unprepos-
sessing in appearance, was one of my most devoted admirers
as a pianist. The sale at the box office, where I made frequent
inquiries, was gratifying. Children under ten were admitted
free if accompanied by a ticket-holder; in consequence the
concert attracted many mothers who could not leave their
infants unattended at home.

Early on the morning of the day of the concert I awoke
violently from a dream in which, sitting at a grand piano In
Carnegie Hall with the Philharmonic Society Orchestra be-
hind me, I lost all memory of the composition I was about to
play and was quite unable to begin. Relieved to find it only a
dream, but still apprehensive, I ran in my underwear to the
piano to test my memory. I probed the concerto for elusive
spots, and to my almost hysterical relief I played it through
without flaw or hesitation. Madam Franko had warned me to
practice only sparingly on the day of the concert. I had heard
that artists like De Pachmann, Paderewski, and Hofmann
contented themselves with running through a few scales on
the day of their concerts. Like them I must conserve my
powers for the actual performance. Yet I was unable to hold

Debut 369

to this resolve. For suddenly, several times during the morn-
ing, I recalled my dream, and panic seized me, and I could not
remember what passage followed a certain modulation. Until
the moment of my departure for the hall, I was constantly at
the piano. Even as I left the house I was assailed by misgivings
and ran back for a final look at the music.

I was escorted to the Educational Alliance by an honor
guard consisting of Mike Dorf and Hyman Fink. They,
realizing that I was nervously going through the concerto in
my mind, kept respectfully silent, taking care to steer me
safely through the Sunday crowds on the streets, for I stared
into space as I walked, seeing only notes before my eyes.
Though the concert was still two hours away, when we
reached the Educational Alliance there was a line of people
that began at the East Broadway entrance and stretched around
the corner into Jefferson Street. Young people, mothers with
babies in their arms, old men and women were pushing and
shoving to get into the hall, for there were no reserved seats.
No one appeared to recognize me, though my name on the
poster stared them in the face! I wondered at that as I entered
the building and made my way to the stage. The curtain was
down, but I could hear the noise and clamor of the people
rushing for seats. I sat down at the piano and began to practice
softly. A moment later (so it seemed) the members of the or-
chestra appeared and took their places and I was asked to
sound the A. Somebody clapped his hands for silence, the
curtain went up. Mr. Franko emerged from the wings to great
applause, bowed stiffly, turned to us, and gave the downbeat
for the overture to Iphigenia in Aulis. Next came Schubert's
"Unfinished" Symphony. My time was drawing near. My
hands felt quite cold. Why hadn't I thought of soaking them in
hot water as Josef Hofmann always did before he came out
to play?

Mr. Franko went into the wings after the Schubert, and
three violinists and I shoved the piano down front to the very

370 A LOST PARADISE

edge of the stage. Then I raised the lid. There was a burst of
applause as I sat down and began adjusting the height of the
stool. As I did so, I glanced at the auditorium and saw every-
one I knew or had ever known. In that frightening moment I
recognized members of my family Molly, Hannah, my
mother, my father in his shiny stovepipe (evidently he con-
sidered my debut a serious occasion) , Chaie Rive Flayshig and
the twins (my mother must have bought her a ticket), Zalman
Reich and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Gold of Passaic (how did
they know?), the Finkle girls, and Harry Finkle from the
Metropolitan Opera House chorus. More formidable, and
disturbing to me, were Miss Taffel, my very first piano
teacher, Montana, the celebrated pedagogue, the baritone
Beniamino Burgo, Mr. Katz, I. Jacobs, and Sol Rashkin, the
violinist and my erstwhile tormentor. Unlike my family and
friends, they would be highly critical. And there sat Madam
Franko in the middle of the first row, right below the piano,
stony-faced, grim, alert. For comfort I shifted my gaze to my
mother, Hannah, and Molly. They looked back at me eagerly,
smilingly. Evidently they did not realize what was at stake. I
shut out all other thoughts and concentrated on the loving-
kindness they signaled to me with their eyes.

Mr. Franko returned and stood on the podium a little in
front of me to the left. An ominous silence fell on the audi-
torium like a pall, made more terrible by the sudden cry of an
infant calling cc Marnma! Mamma!" Mr. Franko turned his
head sternly toward the disturbance and waited. Silence again
became painfully palpable. After an eternity Mr. Franko
raised his stick. After another his arm descended and from
behind rne came the soft opening syncopated D minor chords
of the concerto. I played at the right moment, a little timidly.
My fear about not coming in at the right moment had been
groundless! The broken octaves in the left hand went better.
I began to grow confident. My playing sounded. I could hear
the full round tones as they glanced off the raised polished-

Debut 3 7 1

ebony sounding-board of the piano. Long before the cadenza,
I felt at ease. And as the orchestra swung into the preparatory
tutti, I boldly looked down at Madam Franko and read ap-
proval in her eyes. I was conscious, in the midst of the intri-
cacies of the cadenza, that I was feeling pleasure.

Nevertheless, the vociferous applause that greeted the end
of the movement caught me unawares. I looked down trying to
remember whether an artist bowed after each movement or
only after the last. The applause persisted, and I glanced at
Madam Franko for guidance. Madam Franko's eyes were
puckered shrewdly, and she was applauding with the rest.
She was, in fact, leading the applause; for when it showed
signs of abating, she clapped wildly and infectiously, and
everybody followed suit. It was at the height of this demon-
stration that she motioned me to rise and bow, and when I did
she led the crowd into an even more shattering outburst.

Thenceforward I was in full command of myself. At the
end of the concerto I did not forget to rise and shake hands
with Mr. Franko as I had been told to do by Madam Franko.
I had also been told to insist on Mr. Franko taking several
bows with me. But that was not necessary, for Mr. Franko
volunteered to accompany me from the wings three times. He
then sent me out alone to play my encores. These, too, came
off well, and at Madam Franko's insistence I was obliged to
add the "Minute" Waltz to the C sharp minor Nocturne and
the "Spinning Song." When I took my final bow, my sister
Sarah advanced to the stage and held up a bouquet of four roses
wrapped in a Jewish newspaper. I was completely taken by
surprise. I had, in the excitement, quite forgotten the hope I
had cherished that someone would give me flowers over the
footlights. I would have bent down and kissed Sarah for her

o

kindness and extravagance (nobody ever bought flowers) . But
the stage was too high from the floor of the hall for me to
make the attempt.

Later, after the end of the concert, I kissed Sarah backstage,

372 A LOST PARADISE

and on learning that the bouquet was a joint offering of herself
and Ella, I also kissed her plain but generous friend. But I
had little time to devote to them, for the stage was filled to
suffocation with my friends and relatives, the friends and rela-
tives of the orchestra, and some smartly clad uptown people
who had come as the guests of the Frankos. Madam Franko
took me aside, shook my hand, and said that she was glad her
work had not been in vain, and that I must never minimize
the importance of thinking things out in advance in the build-
ing of a career. Even applause, she whispered, must not be left
to chance. Mr. Katz slapped me on the back as if I was a man
of his own age, called me a credit to his store, and asked me
to drop into his shop in the evening, where we could further
discuss the momentous event of the day. He had also invited
Burgo, Montana, I. Jacobs, and some others.

I was congratulated on all sides. The celebrated Montana
spoke in broken English about the beauty of my tone, and
I. Jacobs threw his arms around me and said we must play
four-hands together. Even Sol Rashkin made his way to nie
through the crowd and said: "Why didn't you play like that in
Kiamesha?" in a very loud voice. Sarah had whispered to me
that the rest of the family had gone on home to greet the many
friends and relations who were coming to congratulate me and
partake of refreshments. When I had spoken to everyone on
the stage I knew, Mike and Hymie hurried me out of the
building and led me triumphantly home. Unlike our previous
journey to the Educational Alliance, this return was filled with
talk and laughter all the way to Rivington Street.

The house was full of people and had the festive air of a
wedding. I learned to my sorrow that Molly had waited for
me until the last moment and had just left in time to catch the
train for Waterbury. My father solemnly kissed me and intro-
duced me to three bearded old men from his synagogue. The
look on his face said plainly that he recognized the prestige I
had created for him, but was dubious about its ultimate practi-

Debut 373

cal value. My mother and Hannah were restrained in their at-
tentions to me, for -which I was grateful. My mother herself
was the recipient of congratulatory embraces. People came
up to her, nodded their heads toward me, and said succinctly:
c Wz/. ? " and my mother, easily grasping the flattering implica-
tion, smiled radiantly, showing her dazzling white rows of
false teeth and echoing the exclamation affirmatively.

Pesach \vine and taeglech were passed around. Someone
broke into a Chassidic song of a jolly nature. It was a tune
well known to everybody, and soon others joined in, clapping
their hands in rhythm. One of the bearded men, overcome by
the Pesach wine and his own emotions, executed a Chassidic
dance, vainly trying to force my mother to be his vis-a-vis.
All at once I felt a longing to be at Katz's store in the company
of fellow musicians, to drink in knowledgeable words of
praise, to bask in the adulation of colleagues, to be a part of
the real world. The longing was like an ache that throbbed
with increasing intensity. Did I dare leave the house at this
moment? My mother would grieve. The guests would not
understand. I would be like a groom stealing away alone in the
midst of the wedding festivities.

But Hannah understood when I told her how I felt. She
agreed to make up some plausible excuse and urged me to go
at once. I ran down the stairs two at a time. On the way to
East Broadway I began to feel ashamed of what I had done,
and thought of returning before my absence could be noticed.
But when I opened the door of Katz's music store and beheld
the familiar company leaning against the counter, the diminu-
tive form and shrewd, eager face of the proprietor behind it,
and heard voices loud in argument about music, I forgot my
home and all the people in it.

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

The text of this book was set on the Monotype in JAN-
SON, a recutting made direct from the type cast from
matrices made by Anton Janson. Whether or not Jan-
son was of Dutch ancestry is not known, but it is
known that he purchased a foundry and was a practic-
ing type-founder in Leipzig during the years 1600 to
1687. Janson's first specimen sheet was issued in 1675.
His successor issued a specimen sheet showing all of
the Janson types in 1689.

His type is an excellent example of the influential and
sturdy Dutch types that prevailed in England prior to
the development by William Caslon of his own in-
comparable designs, which he evolved from these
Dutch faces. The Dutch in their turn had been influ-
enced by Garamond in France. The general tone of
Janson, however, is darker than Garamond and has a
sturdiness and substance quite different from its pred-
ecessors. It is a highly legible type, and its individual
letters have a pleasing variety of design. Its heavy and
light strokes make it sharp and clear, and the full-page
effect is characterful and harmonious.

This book was composed, printed, and bound by
KINGSPORT PRESS, INC., Kingsport, Tennessee. Paper
supplied by s. D. WARREN COMPANY, Boston, Massa-
chusetts.

122885